Community Living Association (CLA) moved from paper-based training to one system, and impressed its auditors
Russell Nelson, CEO, and Vicki Corpus, then Chief Business Officer, on replacing paper training and making audits easier.
Organisation
Community Living Association
Based in
Great Southern region, WA
Contact
Russell Nelson, Chief Executive Officer
Centro QMS features
Policies, knowledge testing, internal audit
The starting point
Community Living Association (CLA) is a not-for-profit and one of WA's leading NDIS registered providers, supporting people with disability across the Great Southern region for over 30 years. Its services include Positive Behaviour Support and accommodation, and it employs more than 150 staff alongside a network of volunteers.
Training was the pain point. Inducting employees, board members and volunteers meant a slow, paper-based process. Russell calls moving to Centro QMS an educated leap. Most of the theory training now happens online, using Centro's policies and the Knowledge Test module.
For CLA the reason is simple: its people are the heart of the organisation, and they deserve thorough training against the NDIS practice standards and quality indicators.
Policies they can make their own
The supplied policies gave CLA a strong foundation, and Russell is clear that this is not a set and forget job. Each organisation still has to do its homework and own the content.
Even so, he says the policies are professionally written with the people who use them in mind, and the team has peace of mind that they cover what the NDIS requires.
Audits without the scramble
Vicki looked after internal auditing, which can be daunting and slow. Two years in, CLA had inducted more than 150 people and completed numerous internal audits in Centro QMS. She found the Internal Audit module made the whole process more efficient and effective, and the newer evidence column pushed the team to think about what proof each audit needs.
CLA also uploads its own audit templates, and even its IT team used the supplied templates to run a cyber security audit.
When the external audit came around, CLA gave the auditor remote access to the platform so they could see the audit schedule, completed audits and supporting documents. CLA is also audited against ISO standards. One ISO auditor had never seen Centro before, so Vicki told him to open any internal audit he liked. All the evidence was there, loaded and organised.
Support and shared advice
Setup was mostly smooth sailing, Vicki says, with straightforward navigation and instructions. The Support Portal and knowledge base articles sit inside the app, and 1:1 support from the Centro team made it easy to get answers. Regular interactive webinars helped CLA bring in new parts of Centro over time.
Russell meets with other WA CEOs every few months, and one challenge keeps coming up: keeping policies and procedures in line with the NDIS while carrying the burden of paper-based internal audits and self-assessments. His advice to other CEOs is that with Centro you get a team of NDIS experts writing the policies and processes, linked to the audit templates and housed in one place. He highly recommends it.
Before
- Paper-based training for staff, board members and volunteers
- Internal audits and self-assessments done on paper
- Keeping policies in line with the NDIS a constant worry
After
- More than 150 people inducted through Centro QMS
- Auditors given remote access to audits and evidence
- Policies the team trusts to cover what the NDIS requires
Fantastic, well done. You're miles ahead of anyone else.
An ISO auditor, on seeing CLA's internal audits in Centro QMS
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