It was within the scope of the Enable and Enable for Better Support project, co-financed by INR I.P. 2017, and following the “Quality Meeting” held on February 10 in Coimbra, which established the development of two benchmarking groups simultaneously: one in the north and the other in the south. The first meeting of both groups took place on April 21st.
In the case of the Northern group, the first meeting was held with the support of CERCIFEIRA, at the Parish Council of Santa Maria da Feira, with Mário Pereira (president of the FORMEM board) being the facilitator. 39 people from 21 entities participated in this meeting.
With the objective of approaching the EQUASS 2018 certification model, it began by working on its first principle, Leadership, following a set of guiding points:
1) Analysis of the definition of the principle;
2) Analysis of the description of each criterion and of the indicated indicators;
3) Familiarization with the different phases within each criterion;
4) Conceptual and practical differences between each phase;
5) Phase in which each organization is located;
6) Practices of each organization, innovative experiences;
7) Reflection on the requested documents;
8) Indicators and numerical results.
In the Southern group, the meeting took place at the Fundação LIGA facilities and had 15 participants from 9 entities. In this case, the first principle of the EQUASS 2018 model was also addressed, but it was Ana Isabel Cruz (vice-president of FORMEM) who led the group, which had another way of working.
Through the analysis of the evaluation questionnaires it can be concluded that both meetings were successful.