Triangle developed the first Family Star in 2010, in collaboration with Camden Council in London as part of their innovative focus on outcome measurement. It was the 4th Outcomes Star Triangle developed and brought its own engaging challenges. In particular, the Family Star was to be completed with a parent, but the beneficiary was their child or children.
Whilst keeping a clear focus on the intended outcome – that children could thrive – the Star needed to recognise that, where parents face challenges in their lives, those needed to be addressed for their own well-being as well as to benefit their children.
Parents with lived experience helped to shape the Family Stars, based on the process of change they had gone through with support from the service.
Soon after the original Family Star was published, the government in England and Wales announced significant new investment in supporting vulnerable families – initially called the Troubled Families Initiative. This initiative included a focus on understanding and measuring outcomes for families, and the Star was perfect as a tool for doing that – or almost. To align even better with the framework, it needed more focus on parents, particularly on the parent’s own well-being and on helping parents into work, where appropriate.
In response, Triangle collaborated with Leicestershire County Council to create the Family Star Plus in 2012. This has since become one of the most widely used of the family of Outcomes Stars, particularly by local authorities in England.
Triangle then worked with collaborators in Scotland to produce materials which mapped the Family Star to SHANARRI, the Scottish Government outcomes framework for children and families.
Since these early Family Stars, Triangle has developed many more versions for children and families. My Star for children is widely used to give the voice of the child alongside the Family Star Plus or Family Star. There is also the lighter touch Family Star Early Years and then the Family Star (relationships), for use where the main focus is on the relationship between parents, including with mediation and looking after the child’s well-being in family breakdown. Triangle also developed more Stars for children and young people – preview versions of all of these and more are available to download from the website.
Triangle is committed to keeping the suite of Outcomes Stars up to date – we invest part of the Star Licence fee in this – and have a robust process for reviewing existing Stars and creating new editions. We used this to review the Family Stars in 2021-2022, as described in our previous blog and detailed in a development summary that will be published with the new editions in April. The result is new editions that are more person centred, accessible and trauma informed.
If you are a current user of the Family Star or Family Star Plus (practitioner or manager), please register to attend the launch webinar event.
If you can’t participate on the day, please register anyway, as we will share the recording and all new resources with you. you.
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