The Dream Chaser Youth Club is committed to using feedback from its clients as a basis for assessing customer satisfaction and reviewing, shaping and developing Advice and Support services accordingly.

 

A range of methods is used in order to gain such feedback; however, an accessible, usable and relevant complaints procedure is fundamental to ensure the service users’ views are used to improve the delivery of services. In order to make the procedure more accessible, the procedure offers a means for registering Comments, Compliment and Complaints about services. This allows the clients to question the organisation without, by implication, having to judge it.

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Complaint Policy:

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This section outlines the Dream Chaser Youth Club’s approach to complaint. “A compliant is expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service provided, actions, or lack of action by the Organisation, its staff or agents, which affect any individual service-user or group of service users”.

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The Dream Chaser Youth Club is committed to the following policy whenever we investigate a compliant about our services, our staff or agents, or our procedure from any of our service users.

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• We will operate an open and accountable Comments, Compliment and Complaint Procedure to ensure the service user receives a fair and impartial consideration of the compliant and a fully investigated response in an agreed period of time.

• We will operate a clear, simple and widely publicised procedure, which suits service users, with guidance on how to complain.

• We will promote a positive culture about complaints to ensure that staff understands both policy and procedure, are trained and supported, and that front-line staff, where appropriate, are able to resolve matters directly and speedily to the satisfaction of the service user, without recourse to the formal procedure. Training will incorporate a sense of shared responsibility for service delivery across all disciplines.

• We will accept complaints verbally, in person or by in writing by letter or on the Complaints form, or in any other reasonable format which meets service users’ needs (e.g. audiotape). We will also accept complaint submitted by advocated and others on behalf of applicants and service users and welcome the input of advocates and others.

• Receipt of the complaint will acknowledge within 10 working days along information to the service user about who is dealing with their complaint, how they will contacted and the date by which they will receive a written response.

• We will respond to service users within agreed timescales at each stage, explaining what action being taken and what else they can do if still dissatisfied.

• We will offer service users a right of appeal if they remain dissatisfied with our initial response.

• We will ensure systematic monitoring of each complaint and of the complaints process to ensure that procedures are adhered to an to feed into development of policy and best practise

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Introduction: Comments, Compliments and Complaints are important sources of information about service user satisfaction. The Dream Chaser Youth Club welcomes and encourages such feedback to continuously improve the quality of service provided.

 

Purpose: This procedure is intended to provide a means for.

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• Resolving situations where service users are dissatisfaction with our Advice and Support services, our staff or agents, or our procedures (complaints).

• Using positive feedback from service users to inform the development of services and procedures (compliments).

• Looking at aspects of the services and identifying any necessary action, which may involve providing information to service users or making changes to service/procedures (comments).

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Informal Resolution: All service users have the choice of whether to make a comments, compliment or complaint formally or informally. Encouraging and acting on feedback enables staff to focus on what the service user is saying and to resolve the issues informally. Front-line staff receives and respond to comments, compliments and complaints on day-to-day basis, and more often

than not are able to informally resolve a wide range of issues to the satisfaction of the service user. In all cases where feedback is resolved informally, appropriate records should be kept and reported to the line manager or team for use in shaping future policy or practice. A simple standard form should be completed by the staff member who received the informal complaint and countersigned by individual who made it. Confirming that the matter has been resolved to their satisfaction Copies of these forms should be passed to the line manager, who can decide whether there is a need review current policies or practise. If a service user chooses to formalise their Comment, Compliment or Complaint the formal Procedure should be followed.

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Formal Resolution: There are three stages to internal procedure as Follows:

 

Stage One: Initially, all formal complaints, compliments and quires should be sent to the Organisations Manager. A complaint does not need to be made in writing. Verbal complaints are acceptable, as are complaints through advocates or others. Where a comment, compliment or complaint is made verbally. The member of staff should complete the relevant form. On receipt of complaint the Organisation’s Manager should complete the Complaints investigation form on receipt of a complaint, a letter of acknowledgement should be sent to the service user within 10 working days. This letter should thank them for their positive comments have been referred to the relevant office/department/person.

 

Any investigation, or the seeking of additional information which, is required, the service user should be contacted to inform them of the continuing delay and further deadline must be set and adhered to. Once the required information is collected and a decision made, a letter detailing the outcome of the investigation and any action taken as a result should be sent to the service user within 10 working days.

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Stage Two: If the service user is not satisfied with the out come of stage 1 of the procedure, or feels that the procedure has not been followed, the stage is to appeal to Further. This appeal can be made verbally or in writing.

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Monitoring: There are 2 standard forms, which are to be used in relation to the formal Complaints procedure. Comments, Compliments and Complaints, which are resolved informally, should be recorded in the Comments, Compliments and Complaints file. These should then be fed back to the Line Manager/staff team through Joint Review meetings or team meetings, in order to

raise issues and identify action where appropriate.

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Attitude: The Dream Chaser Youth Club recognise that any feedback is an important source of information on the level of user’s satisfaction, and use the feedback gained to continually improve the quality of Advice and Support service provided. Complaints have generally been regarded as “bad news” or as a negative issue. However, it is possible to look at complaints as a positive opportunity to learn more about what our service users want from us and how we can improve our service. The Dream Chaser Youth Club’s approach to complaints is therefore to encourage service users to complain if they are not happy with an aspect of the service and to welcome this feedback along with comments/views or compliments. Any staff member investigating a complaint should investigate the matter by taking a problem-solving approach and not by being defensive. The primary purpose is to find a satisfactory resolution and to

learn and take positive action in relation to the Dream Chaser Youth Club’s policies and practise.

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Advocates: Our Procedure allows for comments, compliments and complaints to be registered by a relative, friend, or other individual on behalf of a service user. These will be treated in the same way as those made by service users themselves.

 

Information to Clients: All service users should be made aware of our Comments, Compliments and Complaints, and should be given a copy of the leaflet for service users on the procedure. In addition, clients should be regularly reminded and encouraged to use the procedure.

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Maintaining Confidentiality

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Complaints will be handled with discretion and access to information about individual investigations will only be shared with those who have a legitimate access requirement. In determining access requirements, the Youth Club will have regard to legislative requirements; for example, data protection regulations and freedom of information legislation and also internal policies on

confidentiality and the use of complainant information.

 

Information about individual complaints will only be shared with those who need access for a legitimate Youth Club purpose. This includes staff investigating and responding to the complaint.

 

Where possible, members of staff should be informed if a complaint has been made about them or actions for which they were responsible. Dream Chaser Youth Club has a duty of care to staff complained about as well as to complainants. We will ensure members of staff have an opportunity to respond to the allegations made, where appropriate.

 

Individuals have the right to access information concerning them, for example complainants (and other parties to the complaint) are entitled to access the information about them gathered by complaint investigators. Exceptions to the right to access information about oneself include occasions where disclosure would have an adverse impact on health and wellbeing, management planning,

negotiations or the prevention or detection of crime.

 

Promises of confidentiality will only be given when absolutely necessary to obtain the co-operation of a witness. For example, a witness to an alleged assault may be unwilling to provide a statement to complaint investigators without a promise of confidentiality. Promises of confidentiality will be specific and agreed by a senior manager.

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Difficult Complaints And Unacceptable Behaviour

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Some complaints can be difficult to deal with because of their complexity or sensitive nature, some can be difficult because Dream Chaser Youth Club may have got things wrong and needs to apologise and others can be difficult because of the approach of the person making the complaint. All employees should try to remember that sticking to the facts and keeping emotion out of the

situation will help. Regardless of the manner in which a complaint is made and pursued, its substance must be considered carefully and on its objective merits.

 

If an employee believes that the person making the comment is being abusive, offensive or threatening, he/she is not expected to tolerate such behaviour; if it occurs on the phone or face to face, the employee should make a note of what is being said and should terminate the conversation politely and calmly as soon as possible. The employee should refer the matter to their line manager, who will deal with the situation in accordance with the Bullying and Harassment procedure. It may be necessary to require the person making the comments to communicate only in a particular way e.g., in writing and not by phone, or to communicate only with a designated employee; however, every attempt should be made to continue to deal with the complaint

 

Communicating and reporting - if the Youth Club decides not to progress the complaint because it deems the complainant’s behaviour to be unacceptable, the complainant will be informed in writing of our reasons for such a decision, which will be taken by a senior member of staff and will normally be final.

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