Key Highlights
What was this case study? Exploring how Active Pathways uses the Recovery Star (4th Edition) across their services to strengthen outcome measurement, support planning and person-centred care.
Why was the Recovery Star chosen? To improve the quality and consistency of outcomes measurement, provide a shared framework for staff, and support more structured, collaborative conversations with individuals.
What was the impact? The Recovery Star has helped practitioners have more meaningful conversations, build stronger therapeutic relationships and develop more holistic, tailored support. It has also improved consistency across teams, strengthened support planning and enabled better use of data to track progress and inform service improvement.
“I feel like using the Star has brought me a lot closer to the people I’m supporting. It helps create therapeutic rapport and look at service users in a more holistic way. I just found it very, very good.” – Paul Drinkwater, Occupational Therapist
We talked with some of the team members implementing the newest version of Recovery Star about how the use of the Star is impacting practitioners, services and the individuals they support. The team is led by Ellie Wood, Clinical Services Development Manager, with support from the Therapy Team – Assistant Psychologist Charlotte Denby, and Occupational Therapists Tom Lawless and Paul Drinkwater.
Introducing Active Pathways
Active Pathways support people with complex mental health conditions, autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, and other complex needs. Their services, based across Lancashire and Yorkshire, offer a blend of therapeutic, residential, supported living and enhanced supported living services.
They have a strong therapeutic and clinical framework to support recovery and sustained progress and provide person-centred care, with personalised, evidenced-based support.
The Recovery Star (4th Edition)
The Recovery Star (4th Edition) is the Star for people with mental health and wellbeing needs. It was developed to support people with a wide range of short and long term mental health conditions. The Star aims to help people in their recovery, where ‘recovery’ may mean living well with mental health issues, rather than having no symptoms.
The Recovery Star helps people and the services supporting them identify progress towards key outcomes like managing mental health, physical health, relationships and trust and hope, and give clarity on where to focus next.
Why did active Pathways want to implement Recovery Star?
As part of the clinical strategy led by Ellie and the Therapy Team, a decision was made to implement the Recovery Star (4th Edition) to enhance the quality and consistency of outcome measurement. Staff were trained in the updated model and Star Online was introduced for the first time.
The Recovery Star is now embedded across all services, informing support planning, activity planning, Key Performance Indicator monitoring and goal setting, and is actively used to inform collaborative, outcomes‑focused discussions with individuals.
What impact has the Recovery Star had?
Better conversations with the individuals they support
Tom says: “We definitely get better conversations. We find things out that we haven’t found out before because there’s a structure to it. One individual that started psychology, we found out that he’s actively hearing voices quite a lot, but he was not open to talking about them before. It really helped us understand some of the behaviours that he was exhibiting and just got us a better picture of who he is as a person.”
Charlotte adds: “I also think it helps to initiate what could be a vulnerable conversation without pressure. For example, we had someone who through the process of completing the Recovery Star disclosed he had relapsed into alcohol use.”
Charlotte says that it was through seeing the outcome area ‘addictive behaviour’ that the individual realised this applied to them. She says: “as a result he was able to access support probably a lot sooner than he would have done otherwise.”
It has helped Charlotte as an Assistant Psychologist to engage with individuals in a new way. She says: “A lot of people come in and they don’t want to engage in psychology because they’ve had quite hard experiences in the past where it’s been enforced by previous placements, whereas here it’s much more of a choice. People will come in and say ‘actually I don’t want to engage in psychology’ whereas doing the Star gives me that in to build that relationship.” From there, Charlotte says, individuals can become more open to having psychology based conversations.
Paul adds, “I felt like it brought me a lot closer to the individual, it helped create more therapeutic rapport. It helped me look at them in a much more holistic way as we went around the 10 points of the Star.”
Deeper engagement with Star materials and Star Online
The team say that completing Stars using Star Online has been helpful, and having the guides and printed resources to use with individuals also encourages deeper engagement with the Star.
Paul says: “I’ve found the Flashcards really useful. It just gives a basic pictorial representation of what we’re trying to discuss. I think without those Flashcards, sometimes we’d struggle to articulate to certain individuals what the intention is with the Recovery Star.”
Being able to complete Stars using Star Online has been helpful. Charlotte explains that the questions on Star Online have helped deepen some conversations: “Since we’ve started using that with the individuals, I’ve noticed there’s a lot more reflection that comes from the individuals as well.”
Because the Star Online gives individuals the option to click options if completing it digitally, Charlotte says it’s a great tool to have, particularly with those who may struggle to communicate their behaviours or actions.
We definitely get better conversations. We find things out that we haven't found out before because there's a structure to it. One individual that started psychology, we found out that he's actively hearing voices quite a lot, but he was not open to talking about them before.
How Recovery Star is supporting practitioners at Active Pathways
Greater clarity for staff
Completing the Star more regularly and thoroughly with individuals has led to greater clarity about where someone really is on their Journey of Change. At times this has meant that people’s position on the Journey of Change is not as high as it would have been when completing the Star before.
Sharing information with other practitioners
Tom explains that the team regularly share information, and longer occupational therapy and psychology reports can be a lot for people to go through. However, because staff are becoming so familiar with the Star, it helps to consolidate key information and share it across teams. Having the Recovery Star as a shared resource also helps the team plan and implement interventions, and encourages support workers to get behind specific, meaningful activities with individuals.
Paul says: “It’s helped me become a lot more specific. For example in terms of what does living skills mean when we talk about living skills in an multi disciplinary team meeting, ward round, or my reviews? It can be such a broad topic, but with the Recovery Star, it does break it down into those five sections. It’s really handy in the handbook, because it breaks it down into what does it exactly mean by use of time or friends and community, which for me has been absolute gold because it means we’ve now got consistency across all our support planning.”
Our support team are the backbone of how we complete our interventions, so the fact that we've got that ability to communicate with a shared resource really has helped.
Support planning across teams
The Recovery Star has helped enhance support planning. Tom says: “Our support team are the backbone of how we complete our interventions, so the fact that we’ve got that ability to communicate with a shared resource really has helped. We’ve seen support workers getting more involved in activities that were more meaningful in terms of productive and leisure activities. And they’re thinking about it from the scope of, ‘OK, what can I do next?’ rather than, ‘OK, how can I fill this person’s time?’ It’s much more proactive as a result of it.”
Charlotte adds: “We’re definitely seeing that shift in the support plans, so instead of looking at what people are struggling with, what they can’t do, it’s more what can staff do?”
Using Star Online data for service governance and outcomes measurement
Ellie says that Star Online data has been useful to support governance and outcomes measurement. She explains: “Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and outcome measures form a core part of the organisation’s governance cycle and are routinely reviewed through our established governance meetings. These reviews provide structured oversight of service performance, enabling progress against agreed objectives to be monitored over time. Outcome data, including Recovery Star measures, are analysed to identify trends, variations, and areas of improvement or risk. This information is used to inform decision‑making, support continuous quality improvement, and ensure that care delivery remains outcomes‑focused, safe, and responsive to the needs of individuals we support. Actions arising from these reviews are clearly recorded, monitored, and followed up to ensure accountability and sustained improvement.”
Charlotte has been using Star Online data for reporting and feeding back to governance and multi disciplinary team meetings. She says she finds the distance travelled report the most useful. “I think they’re so helpful. To be able to see from a service point of view really highlights where do we need to improve our support and service offer to support the individuals rather than what the individuals need to work on,” she says.
What’s next for Active Pathways and the Recovery Star?
Moving forward, Active Pathways have a clear focus on the effective use of outcome measures, recognising the importance of accurate and meaningful data collection to track progress, identify trends and demonstrate impact. This data will be used to inform decision‑making, shape the care and support provided, and ensure services remain outcomes‑focused, person‑centred, and responsive to the needs of individuals and service users.
All staff who have received training have an active role in applying the Recovery Star across services and ongoing work will continue to build staff confidence and capability and ensure consistent and effective use of the Recovery Star across all services.
Click here to learn more about Recovery Star (4th edition)