Constructing a Quality Standards Assessment with Service Provider and Youth Perspectives

Quality standards assessments (QSA) offer human service organizations a way to measure their performance and alignment with organizational goals and objectives. Using a case-study approach, this article demonstrates how one youth-serving coalition, aiming to provide comprehensive wrap around services, developed QSA surveys to operationalize coalition objectives and track their progress. From 2015 to 2016, this coalition created QSA surveys focusing on both provider- and youth-reported quality, each providing its own unique angle for the assessment. Factor analysis was used to identify two underlying dimensions of youth perceptions of quality, encompassing both interpersonal interactions and benefits of the services received. Correlation analyses uncovered associations between center designation and both provider- and youth-reported quality. Overall, the findings offer scholar-researchers and practitioners of human service organizations as well as youth-serving networks more broadly guides and tools for measuring service quality.