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Best result to date in Customer Service Excellence

St Christopher’s is delighted to have been award the Customer Service Excellence Award for another year, achieving more areas of good compliance than ever before and one area of Compliance ​Plus.

Customer Service Excellence is a government-backed standard introduced to ensure services are run with the customer at their heart. St Christopher’s has held the award since 2011 and is delighted to have been commended for more areas of good practice this year than ever before.

This time around we received our first ever ‘Compliance Plus’ commendation for our Into Employment scheme on the Isle of Man. As part of our strategic commitment to lifelong learning and thriving, we are partnering with local businesses give young people opportunities to experience the world of work and gain essential employment skills for the future. The report said: “A genuine multi-agency approach has been adopted in the development of the Into Employment support scheme on the Isle of Man. A range of Government agencies have become involved and engaged in the process… the office of the Attorney General is now sympathetic to changes to the law which will further the aims of St Christopher’s in supporting their young people’s structured entry into the world of work.”

Other key feedback from the report includes:

  • “Looked after children’s views are fully integrated into the consultative process both for practical actions at individual sites and for strategic decisions at corporate level.”
  • “Interactions between looked after children and St Christopher’s staff demonstrated mutual respect and a quality of relationship which was clearly the result of lengthy building of mutual trust.”
  • “Staff feedback indicates that the quality of training is held in high regard.”
  • “The Safe Steps programme has been awarded the rare “Outstanding” grade by Ofsted, a level achieved by only 6% of children’s homes.”
  • “Several impressive examples of service improvement through analysis of young people’s observations in the annual consultation. These included significant changes to the way moving on from one particular home is now marked by a goodbye party, shopping for the first few days (for those moving to a semi-independent home) and when they would be visited by preferred workers.”
  • “Partnerships – or “co-production” – provide the underlying theme of all major developments.”
  • “To set and maintain high standards of customer satisfaction, St Christopher’s have modified the APEX inspections to meet the same standards as Ofsted and will now be graded in the same way.”
  • “Staff were consulted in the formation of St Christopher’s strategy for the next 5 years.”

Chief Executive Jonathan Whalley said: “Reading this report makes me so proud to be part of St Christopher’s. Every member of staff across all areas of our organisation work so hard to create brighter futures for children and young people, and I am thrilled to be part of the team.”

Find out more about the Customer Service Excellence Award at St Christopher’s.