This does not sound exciting at all, but I think about the most exciting thing that has happened at my work lately is our CoC board voted in an updated Policies and Procedures document and a brand new Data Quality Standards document. As of November 1st, it will be IN EFFECT! It is exciting to me partially because this was a project I helped with for almost a year. Some weeks it went untouched; other weeks, it was all I could think about, but in all, it was really a year’s worth of work to get both of those documents ready.
But the main reason it’s exciting is it is a sign of a functioning CoC. Not only to be able to come up with logical policies and coherent procedures and get them passed by the CoC board, but also to put into place a process, a set of standards that everyone is held to. When information only comes in emails and presentations, documents, and helpdesk tickets, things are very much left up to individuals fielding questions and susceptible to misunderstandings and misinformation. Publishing documents for data quality standards and HMIS policies brings in an accountability to the agencies in the CoC that was missing before.
Granted, most CoCs already have documents like this, and this should really not be much of a big deal, but in our case, these documents being put into effect after years of having a very out of date Policies and Procedures document is a huge step forward for our CoC! YAY US!