E-Qalin, the European model of measurement and quality improvement in social services, currently finds its way into Old People´s Home in the Czech Republic. Through the project, which is implemented by the Association of Social Service Providers Czech Republic supported by the European Social Fund (Operational Programme Human Resources and Employment), with the method of E-Qalin will acquaint 30 representatives of social service providers, so-called process managers, of a total of 15 Czech Old People´s Home.

What is E-Qalin

E-Qalin is an internal quality management system developed specifically for social services. It has been modified for these types of services yet: residential services for the elderly, residential services for persons with disabilities, terrain and ambulant services, integrated center of social services.  It is a model focused on daily practice and the needs of users, their relatives, friends and employees.
E-Qalin investigates and monitors both individual processes and structures in the organization, as well as results with regard to the satisfaction of all concerned. It supports facilities using self-assessment and learning. The overall aim is that the processes leading to the satisfaction of users rate their own promoters on the basis of reflection, selfexperience and innovative learning. These work processes must be first described, identified, analyzed and then routed to the objectives of the organization and user needs.
Among European countries where the E-Qalin successfully implemented belongs Austria, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Slovakia.  Currently E-Qalin gets to France, Great Britain and now to the Czech Republic.

Introducing the E-Qalin to the Czech republic

Implementation of the project, where the aim is to introduce the E-Qalin in Czech Old People´s Home, runs from June 2010 to November 2011. One of the initial project activities has been training of Czech lecturers in the E-Qalin methods. They subsequently participated in the processing of all documents for transfer methods into the facilities and currently realize training seminars for future process managers. Training of Czech lecturers was organized by the Austrian company E-Qalin GmbH, which is the exclusive owner of the E-Qalin ® license and the only supplier of this method.  Training conducted in the German language was implemented through three several days training seminars.
It was necessary to examine the expertise of lecturers in practice in the pilot testing in a home for elderly after successful completion of training. The aim was both to prepare an exact schedule, content and structure of the learning of process managers, both to verify the quality and intelligibility of training materials and success of portability of the E-Qalin methods into the Czech environment. The pilot was done under the direction of two certified lecturers in the Home for Elderly G-Centre Tábor.
At present 30 representatives of upper and middle management of Czech homes for elderly are getting acquainted with E-Qalin method. All participants in two educational groups (Tábor, Brno) have already completed the first  part of the training, where met the philosophy of E-Qalin method, structure of the model and logic of the evaluation. The aim of the second part is to acquaint participants with the individual steps and functions in the process of introducing of the method into the home for elderly.  There will follow the reflective days during the summer months when lecturers help to each facility with the setting the process of implementation of the model. Successful graduates of the training will receive a certificate of the process manager at the end.

The aim of the project is to show the experience of the first Czech homes for elderly with E-Qalin uniqueness and advantages of the European model of measuring quality in social services and stimulate the interest of other Czech facilities to improve the quality of provided services.

Our organization was included as a pilot into this project. For more informations visit the website "E-Qalin"