EQUASS Award

European Quality Award in Social Services (EQUASS Award)

The European Quality Award in Social Services (EQUASS Award) has been developed to promote the Principles for Quality (the core values of the social sector) in the social sector, and to identify and award outstanding performance on the Principles for Quality.

The EQUASS Award is Europe’s most prestigious award for social services and is the top level of the EQUASS certifications. It is open to every EQUASS Excellence awarded organisation and focuses on recognising outstanding performance in social services provision. The EQUASS Award is an award given to a social service provider as the result of a voluntary competition in evaluating and benchmarking outstanding performance between service providers in the social sector.

The EQUASS Award applies the methodology of benchmarking in comparing EQUASS Excellence awarded organisations on specific EQUASS Award criteria. An Advisory Committee composed of representatives of stakeholders at the European level as well as experts with years of experience, compare performance of the applicants on the nine criteria.

The EQUASS Award is granted annually to the organisation judged to be the best in each of the following categories:

Outstanding performance in service provision
Outstanding performance in partnership
Outstanding performance in ethics and rights of persons served

Award winners are exceptional organisations - they are European role models in their approaches and the results they achieve.