Author: Outcomes Star

December 2016 marks 10 years since publication of the original Outcomes Star for the homelessness sector. We never imagined that 10 years later there would be 30 Stars and 30 people working with Triangle in the UK, with Stars used in more than a dozen countries worldwide and translations including Finnish, Italian and Chinese. Triangle has needed to learn and develop rapidly to respond.

2016 main highlights:

• Publication of the Independence Star for the armed forces community and Justice Star for the criminal justice sector
• An easier to use update of our Training Manual for 300+ active Licensed Trainers
• Unique Outcomes joined as our new service provider in Australia
• New courses and options and training in a farmyard, dance studio, racecourse, castle plus some less glamorous locations!
• Star data analysis with new advanced reports to better evidence change and reveal more meaningful insights
• After a rigorous process, the Justice Star was approved by NOMS – the UK government National Offender Management Service – for use by one of the collaborators.

A few snippets we’re pleased about:

• The Star was mentioned in the House of Lords
• We have agreed 3 year deals with a number of significant clients to really embed various Stars – contact us about longer term deals
• Several clients successfully embedded the Family Star Plus into Early Help Assessments
• We have an agreement with Corelogic to include the Star in Mosaic and are working with other big software providers
• Up to October 2016, over 525,000 Stars have been submitted on our Star Online web application
• We’ve trained 8 new Licensed Trainers in our most northerly UK venue so far…Stornaway (Isle of Lewis)

Internally in 2016:

• We grew by a few more people, and can now really help people implement the Star well, think creatively about new challenges and welcome new interest in the Stars
• We took a deep breath and made the move to a proper client management system, thereby reducing detective work and responding better to people getting in touch
• We updated the Star licences options – keeping prices the same and starting to simplify our communications

2017 main highlights:

• An unprecedented number of new Stars under development – we still find the process fascinating and meaningful. In spring 2017 we will publish the Tenancy Star for vulnerable tenants in housing associations. Others include a version for supporting people to have often difficult conversations about death and priorities towards the end of life
• A new, easier to use website for the Outcomes Star and Triangle. Good design is key to making the Stars clear and accessible while modelling complex change and we are enjoying learning more about the importance and impact of design
• A review of the Star Online – we may be in touch for your views and have a number of improvements already planned
• Further guidance on using Star data for learning and evidencing outcomes, working closely with organisations interested in more in-depth analysis
• Telling people about the Stars – only around half the 30 Stars are known and widely used so in 2017 we will find ways to let people know about the others.

Supporting organisations to use the Star well will continue to be the bulk of our work – through our client services team, implementation managers, Star trainers, international collaborators and through developing new tools and products to respond to needs and opportunities as they emerge.

And, with the end of 2016 marking the 10-year anniversary of the Outcomes Star, we’re hoping to celebrate and share the story of the Star throughout 2017 – watch this space!

We would like to send festive wishes to the many thousands of services, keyworkers and service users who use the Outcomes Star every day. If you’d like more information about any aspect of our work past, present or future then please contact us.

The Outcomes Star has been highlighted to the House of Lords Select Committee on Charities as a simple and beneficiary-focused way for small and medium charities to measure and support change.

Last week, Paul Streets, CEO of Lloyds Bank Foundation, gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Charities around the charity sector’s approach to impact and evidence.   Having highlighted that too often, charities are driven to performing around what’s in a contract rather than what matters for the beneficiaries, he went to explain that the Outcomes Star is one way in which they support specifically smaller charities to overcome this, and to measure and support the work they do:

“I believe that funders, government and ourselves, should support organisations to do this (evaluation).  For example, a very simple measure is something like the Outcomes Star, which is beneficiary focused, it can create a conversation between the client and the charity, and the data it gathers can be aggregated up (for funders).”

You can watch the full Select Committee session here – the Outcomes Star gets its first mention around the 16.08.30 mark: https://goo.gl/k2zTKj

Triangle have been working with Lloyds Bank Foundation since 2015 and provide Enhance support to charities funded by the Enable and Invest Programmes, including Star training, licences and implementation support. So far we have supported 30 small and medium charities to use the Star, helping them to embed an outcomes-driven way of working into their services as well as capture outcomes data for the beneficiaries they support.

If you are a funder and would like more information about how the Star can be incorporated into your programmes, please get in touch with us for an informal chat about how we can help.

If you are a small charity and you would like to use the Outcomes Star in your service, contact us for more information about how we can make the Star as accessible as possible for you.

For details of the Lloyds Bank Foundation’s programmes including the Outcomes Star as part of the Enhance programme, please visit their website: https://www.lloydsbankfoundation.org.uk/our-programmes/.

Today, our collaborators Loretto Care launch their pilot programme, testing out the new, draft Tenancy Star with young people.  The pilot will be led by their expert staff and will gather feedback on the new tool directly from young people who are living in social housing or in private rented accommodation, and who may need additional support and/or be at risk of losing their tenancy.

The Tenancy Star is being co-produced with Loretto, with development beginning in June 2016 and publication planned for early 2017.

For more information about Loretto please visit their website www.lorettoha.co.uk

For more information about developing new Stars in collaboration with us at Triangle, please see ‘Developing new versions’ on our website or contact us on info@triangleconsulting.co.uk or 0207 272 8765.

Loretto Care are today launching the pilot of the Tenancy Star with young people – a new version of the Outcomes Star being co-produced by Triangle with Loretto Care and the young people they support

Do you work with people involved in the criminal justice system? Do you want to capture and report outcomes information whilst also supporting positive change? We are currently piloting the new Justice Star with a wide range of collaborators and are looking for a Youth Service in the UK to join us.

With over 20 versions of the Outcomes Star available, we are delighted to be working with 10 collaborators to develop a new addition to our family of tools: the Justice Star, for people involved in the criminal justice system. Our collaborators span three continents – UnitingCare West in Australia and the Fortune Society in New York, combined with Leicestershire Police, Sodexo Justice Services, Lifeline, The Shaw Trust, North London Forensic Services, Lancashire Women’s Centres and Barnardo’s Family Support Services in the UK.

Thanks to the input from our collaborators, we are now at pilot stage and have navigated a number of choices and debates both with collaborators and within Triangle ourselves. Our collaborators were keen to have one version of the Star if possible, and so our multi-discipline team here at Triangle have brought 12+ years of experience to the ‘jigsaw puzzle’: creating a tool for young people, parents and women; incorporating a focus on accommodation and work both in the community and in custody settings; working bottom up whilst matching to the 7 UK Offender Pathways; and bringing consistency, colour and clarity throughout the development.

The pilot Justice Star is now being rolled out with our collaborators, and is relevant for people on short-term custodial sentences, approaching release or in the community1. Although we are delighted with the variety of collaborators we are working with, the testing of the pilot Star specifically with young people is limited. Therefore we are looking for one to two Youth Offending teams or similar, in the UK, who would be interested in working with us – collaborators need to cover some costs and train workers involved in the pilot. Please get in touch with us at info@triangleconsulting.co.uk or 020 7272 8765 for more information.

Full publication of the Justice Star is scheduled for early 2016 – we’re looking forward to the feedback and learning from our collaborators and would like to thank them again for their investment and involvement so far.

1 The Recovery Star Secure was developed in secure settings and is relevant for people on long-term sentences. More information available here.