What CARF Accreditation means when looking for Community Housing?

CARF was established in 1966, the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, or CARF, is an independent, multinational organization that works to accredit a variety of health service and Behavioral Health Community Housing facilities that have reached a high standard of patient care and quality service. CARF recognizes the work of a facility in upholding the Commission’s core values of respect, patient dignity, fair and equal access to services and care, and a patient’s right to make an informed choice on individual care and treatment. A CARF accreditation also ensures that a facility has been validated in its goals of the continual improvement and development of its healthcare services for the betterment of patient care and well-being.

Before a facility can be endorsed and accredited by CARF, the facility must undergo a rigorous and involved inspection and review of its premises and healthcare staff, as well as its business and clinical practices. A CARF assessment of a facility operates on a consultative peer-review system that works to highlight and reward the most successful areas of service and care in the facility, and if needed, to indicate any areas requiring improvement or modification before a CARF accreditation can be awarded. The CARF surveyor must ensure that all staff members are dedicated to providing the optimal care and treatment to their patients and that each staff member has had the highest standard of training and all the relevant credentials. The surveyor will also ensure that all patients feel that they have been treated fairly, respectfully and with proper care and attention. To by awarded with a CARF accreditation, a facility and its staff members must have proven to uphold and exhibit a strict conformance to the standards and values set forth by the Commission.

As with many healthcare accreditation, a CARF accreditation operates on a system of regular reassessment, the longest of which runs for three years. This system ensures that a healthcare or rehabilitation facility has adopted the principles and values of the CARF organization into its everyday operations and management and that its quality of service and care has been upheld to the highest degree. With a CARF accreditation, a rehabilitation facility can be assured to provide the best possible care for its patients and that its staff members and management are committed to a system of continual enhancement and improvement in all areas of healthcare service.

Community Housing

Community housing addresses the desires, goals, strengths, abilities, needs, health, safety, and lifespan issues of the persons served, regardless of the home in which they live and/or the scope, duration, and intensity of the services that they receive. The residences in which services are provided may be owned, rented, leased, or operated directly by the organization or a third party, such as a governmental entity. Providers exercise control over these sites.

Community housing is provided in partnership with individuals. These services are designed to assist the persons served to achieve success in and satisfaction with community living. They may be temporary or long term in nature. The services are focused on home and community integration and engagement in productive activities. Community housing enhances the independence, dignity, personal choice, and privacy of the persons served. For persons in alcohol and other drug programs, these services are focused on providing sober living environments to increase the likelihood of sobriety and abstinence and to decrease the potential for relapse.

Our Community housing accreditation is for long-term housing , permanent supportive housing.

  • Long-term housing that provides stable, supported community living or assists the persons served to obtain and maintain safe, affordable, accessible, and stable housing.

The residences at which community housing services are provided must be identified in the survey application. These sites will be visited during the survey process and identified in the survey report and accreditation outcome as a site at which the organization provides a community housing program.

Note: The term home is used in the following standards to refer to the dwelling of the person served; however, CARF accreditation is awarded based on the services/supports provided. This is not intended to be certification, licensing, or inspection of a site.

Some examples of the quality results desired by the different stakeholders of these services/supports include:

  • Safe housing.
  • Persons choosing where they live.
  • Persons having privacy in their homes.
  • Persons increasing independent living skills.
  • Persons having access to the benefits of community living.
  • Persons having the opportunity to receive services in the most integrated setting.
  • Persons' rights to privacy, dignity, respect, and freedom from coercion and restraint are ensured.