The Reader Organisation gets the mark of Quality

If there's one word that features large in our vocabulary at The Reader Organisation, it's 'quality'. From choosing the great literature to share each week in our Get Into Reading groups, to developing a programme of Ongoing Learning for our shared reading practitioners and staff alike, to having very yummy Monday lunches each week, we're all about maintaining quality in everything we do. So we're very proud that we have recently received two awards that show our commitment to quality practice - the PQASSO Level 1 Quality Mark and Workplace Wellbeing Charter.

The PQASSO Quality mark is the leading national standard for the charity sector, assessing governance, service delivery, and monitoring systems. It provides external verification of The Reader Organisation’s credibility and determination to produce the best possible experience for those we read and work with.

Our People and Support team have been working hard towards PQASSO for many months and earlier this year the reviewers visited our Head Office in Liverpool to carry out their assessment and see for themselves what TRO is all about. Even amidst two days of rigorous reviewing, there was time for poetry - how better to demonstrate our ethos than with sharing some quality literature? At the end of the opening meeting, Jane read a fitting excerpt from the First Book of The Prelude by Wordsworth:

When, as becomes a man who would prepare
For such an arduous work, I through myself
Make rigorous inquisition, the report
Is often cheering; for I neither seem
To lack that first great gift, the vital soul,
Nor general Truths, which are themselves a sort
Of Elements and Agents, Under-powers,
Subordinate helpers of the living mind:

Our passion for poetry certainly rubbed off, as we were delighted to find that one of the reviewers started the closing meeting the next day by reading the last stanza of The Salutation by Thomas Traherne from Minted! The same reviewer remarked on The Reader Organisation's commitment to quality in awarding us the PQASSO mark:

“The Reader Organisation is a most inspiring organisation staffed by people with a passion for reading and passion for community and personal development. It and its people have an impressive commitment to a very high quality of both practice and outcome for service users.”

In a week that's celebrating the links between creativity and wellbeing, we're also delighted to have been awarded the Workplace Wellbeing Charter for efforts to promote wellbeing amongst our staff through leadership, communication and organisational culture - which happily, involves a lot of reading.

We'll certainly be using our healthy minds and bodies to plough wellbeing into the heart of our plans for Calderstones Mansion House, the future International Centre for Reading and Wellbeing.