Healthcare
VGN
The Dutch Association of Care Providers for People with Disabilities is the trade association of organisations providing professional support to people with a disability. It represents those providers' interests, is a party to the sector's collective labour agreement and runs a helpdesk for it, and publishes knowledge and frameworks for the sector: the Quality Compass for Disability Care 2023-2028, a vision document for 2035, annual reports, the magazine Markant and a knowledge base. Related platforms are attached to the association, such as the VGN Academy and the sector knowledge platform.
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What this source does not give you
The association is a body of care providers and employers, not a regulator and not a legislator. A VGN manual or position is what the sector agrees among itself or advocates; statutory requirements and supervision lie elsewhere. Keep that distinction in mind with advocacy in particular: a VGN position on funding or regulatory burden is a stance, not a finding.
Frequently asked questions
- What exactly is the VGN?
- The trade association of organisations providing professional support to people with a disability. It describes itself as an association for care providers striving for an inclusive society in which people with a disability take part and can lead a meaningful life. That means its members are organisations, not individual care professionals and not clients.
- What is the Quality Compass for Disability Care?
- The Quality Compass for Disability Care 2023-2028 is a national compass for delivering good care and support to people with a disability, adopted by a national steering committee. It succeeds the Quality Framework for Disability Care 2017-2022; the change from framework to compass was deliberate, because a framework can feel constraining while a compass gives direction. So anyone citing the earlier quality framework is citing a superseded document.
- Is a VGN manual binding on a care provider?
- Not in the way regulation is. The association is a membership body: its manuals and frameworks are sector agreements and direction, not decisions by an administrative authority. For its members such a framework can carry considerable practical weight, and a collective labour agreement concluded by the association as a party to it is of course binding on those bound by it. So establish per document what kind of instrument you are holding.
- Where do I find the VGN's substantive knowledge?
- In the knowledge base on its own site, and at the related platforms: the VGN Academy for training and the sector knowledge platform for sector knowledge. The magazine Markant carries stories and interviews and is therefore of a different nature from the frameworks and manuals — useful for understanding practice, not for deriving a standard.