Key Highlights
What was this case study? How NOW Group, an award-winning social enterprise working across the island of Ireland, uses the Life Star and Work Star with people who are neurodiverse, autistic or have a learning difficulty. We explore how they matched the Star to where someone is on their journey rather than to the service they are accessing.
Why were the Stars chosen? To provide a structured and consistent way to measure outcomes, capture distance travelled and support meaningful conversations, while enabling staff and participants to co-design goals and action plans.
What was the impact? Star conversations that reach beyond employment topics and facilitate group learning built around the topics participants raise organically. Throughout the organisation, Star use and Star data have supported funding applications, tender submissions and service proposals and feature strongly in NOW Group’s Social Return on Investment methodology (SROI).
“I would recommend using Outcome Stars because the process creates opportunities for open conversations, helping to strengthen rapport with participants and better understand their needs and aspirations.”
Karen Sullivan, Skills Coordinator and Licensed Trainer
Introducing NOW Group
NOW Group is an award-winning social enterprise working across the island of Ireland, supporting people who are neurodiverse, autistic or have a learning difficulty into jobs with a future. The organisation offers free training, employment support and day opportunities, alongside its own social enterprises such as Loaf Catering and Loaf Pottery. Participant-facing services at NOW Group support almost 2,000 people each year, across 17 projects.
The organisation is participant-led, and its work is built around progression. People come to the NOW Group at very different starting points. Some are school leavers, some have been out of work for some time, and some are not yet thinking about employment at all. What they have in common is a desire to move forward in a way that suits their individual goals and circumstances.
Introducing the Stars NOW Group uses
NOW Group works with a number of Stars across its services, the Life Star and Work Star are the most used.
The Life Star has been developed for young people and adults with learning disabilities to have as much choice, freedom and independence as possible in their day-to-day life.
The Work Star has been developed for adults who are out of work or returning to the workplace and accessing work and learning services. The Work Star supports people who want support to return to work after a gap or to find a job for the first time.
As a participant-led organisation, choosing the right Star is less about the service someone is accessing and more about where they are on their journey. In practice, that means someone far from the labour market starts on the Life Star, working on the foundations, and moves to the Work Star when employment comes into view. Some participants travel through both over several years. Others complete only one, and that can be exactly right for where they are. What matters most is finding the Star that best matches where they are now and where they want to go next.
Why was Outcomes Star chosen?
Sean Hanna, Chief Services Officer at NOW Group, says that as the organisation continued to grow, they wanted a tool that could demonstrate impact in a robust and transparent way while empowering participants to take ownership of their development.
Sean explains: “We recognised the need for a more structured and consistent way to measure outcomes, capture distance travelled and support meaningful conversations around personal development. Outcomes Star offered a framework that enabled both staff and participants to co-design individual journeys through clear goal setting and action planning. It provided a practical way to evidence progress, not just against programme objectives, but also in terms of personal growth and achievement.
Outcomes Star addressed this requirement by providing measurable insights into participant progress, helping us communicate outcomes more effectively to stakeholders, funders, staff and participants alike. As a result, staff feel more confident and better equipped to support participants, plan activities and review progress in a consistent and person-centred way.”
More than a job search
Karen Sullivan, Skills Coordinator and Licensed Trainer, has seen firsthand the impact of the Stars. Before moving into her current role, Karen spent approximately six years using the Work Star in her role as an Employment Officer, meeting participants weekly.
The introduction of Outcomes Star helped broaden those conversations. Karen explains: “We would meet with participants once a week, but it was a focus on jobs. We would sit down, make sure the CV was good, apply, apply, apply. But when we sat down to do our Outcomes Star review, it gives myself and the participant an opportunity to chat a wee bit more.”
Alongside employment goals, participants began discussing wider aspects of their lives, from hobbies and social connections to confidence, wellbeing and future aspirations. In those conversations, participants sometimes spoke about wanting more from their week or disclosed deeper issues such as feeling isolated.
The discussions often highlighted interests, goals and support needs that may have been mentioned when they first joined NOW Group but had not yet felt relevant to them. Revisiting these topics through Star reviews helped participants connect with opportunities and support at a point when they were ready to engage with them.
Karen says the Star also flexes to the pace of the conversation. It does not have to be completed in one sitting; Karen would often work through the Star over a few sessions with the participants she was supporting. Sometimes a participant would raise an issue that made it clear another conversation needed to happen first. “Sometimes I had to stop the Outcomes Star, and it went a totally different route,” Karen says. She’d then tell the participant: “We’ll park the Outcomes Star and have a chat about this. Let’s have a chat about the mental health side of things. Let’s have a chat about that stability in your life.”
Working this way means the Star does two things at once. It creates space for conversations beyond employment while also helping practitioners identify the issues that may need to be addressed before someone can realistically move forward with their goals.
Using Star readings to support activity planning with participants
In NOW Group’s Day Opportunities programme, the use of Star readings helps shape the activities and learning opportunities it delivers. While reviews are carried out individually, staff also look for common themes emerging across participants. If several people identify similar goals or challenges, those insights can be used to build group sessions around the areas participants themselves have identified as important. Topics might include money management, health and wellbeing or other areas of personal development.
“The Star gives us the ability to build sessions around what participants’ want and need,” says Karen.
This means support is shaped by the people accessing it rather than a fixed programme of activities. It also creates opportunities for peer learning, helping participants realise they are often facing similar challenges and can learn from one another.
From overcoming challenges to changing lives: Danielle's story
Karen recalls one of the first participants NOW Group introduced the Star to, a young autistic woman who was struggling with anxiety, family troubles and social isolation. During her initial suitability meeting, Danielle felt overwhelmed and left without signing up. But two weeks later, she decided that she wanted to give it a go.
Danielle was introduced to the Work Star and began exploring her Journey of Change with a focus on employment. But as Karen explains, it was apparent that to build towards employment Danielle also needed support in areas such as mental health, family issues and stability. The Star discussions helped create a safe space for Danielle and Karen to explore and address the support needs it had identified.
I would tell her, you’re doing so well, you’ve made so much progress, and she would say I don’t think I have. But when I showed her printouts of her Stars, she looked at them and realised ‘yes I can see it.’
Over time, the Star reviews helped Danielle to change her perception of the changes she was making. To begin with she would tell Karen she did not see the changes she was making. Karen reflects, “I would tell her, you’re doing so well, you’ve made so much progress, and she would say I don’t think I have. But when I showed her printouts of her Stars, she looked at them and realised ‘yes I can see it.’”
The Star conversations also helped highlight how, through her increased participation in day services with the NOW Group, her social circle was increasing. Karen recalls, “Danielle told me she was walking down the street when someone waved to her. Before that, she hadn’t really known anyone outside of her own family.”
When services closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Star completions were continued by phone and video. During that period, Star conversations with Danielle highlighted that cooking and baking would be activities she’d like to try. This led to a placement in the NOW Group café, working at events as bank staff, cumulating into Danielle’s progression into her first paid position! Danielle went on to become one of NOW Group’s ambassadors.
Today, Danielle is in permanent member of staff with NOW Group, where part of her role is completing the Life Star with participants of her own. “She’s passionate about helping people who are like her. With the Life Star, she knows how it helped her set her goals, so she understands its importance.”
You can read more of Danielle’s experience in her own words here.
Demonstrating service level impact with Outcomes Stars
“From an organisational perspective, the Outcomes Star has provided valuable data and reporting capabilities that help us evidence our impact to funders and stakeholders,” says Sean. Data is used for quality assurance reviews and ETI (Education Training Inspectorate) inspections, as well as strengthening reporting to support funding applications and commissioner engagement.
“For every funding application, tender submission and service proposal, we are able to provide robust evidence of how we engage participants, co-design personalised goals, create action plans and measure progression over time,” says Sean.
Eight years on
Star use at NOW Group has evolved organically as new programmes and services have developed. Rather than applying a single Star across the organisation, teams have considered which Star best fits the specific needs and goals of participants.
Looking back, Karen sees the organisation’s use of the Star as an extension of its participant-led approach, helping staff support progression while adapting services around the needs of the people they work with. “I would recommend it. It helps you build the rapport that you need with your participants. It can help start conversations around topics that are a wee bit tricky. And it helps with building those sessions and helping people,” says Karen.
“Outcomes Star creates valuable opportunities for learning and best-practice sharing across teams and projects. The consistency of the framework allows us to compare approaches, identify successful interventions and continuously improve service delivery, ensuring participants receive the best possible support regardless of which programme they access,” adds Sean.
Click here to learn more about Life Star, and here for Work Star.