Developing the Navigation Stars
A story of listening, learning and adapting
We developed the Navigation Stars to reflect the reality of not having the right support in place or trying to navigate multiple services while under intense pressure or even in crisis. The Stars acknowledge this complexity, putting people’s lived experience at the centre and creating a structure that helps them feel heard, understood and better supported.
The Navigation Stars have been developed to support young people and families navigating complex and challenging circumstances.
The Navigation Star for Young People is designed for young people who face barriers in the world around them and need support and adjustments to thrive. This includes neurodivergent young people (including those with autism, ADHD or other ways of thinking and processing) and young people with a learning disability. The Star is likely to be useful for those aged 12-25, recognising that developmental and experiential appropriateness would be considered case by case.
The Navigation Star for Parents is designed for parents and carers of children of all ages who need additional support to manage at home, in education or in the community. This includes families of neurodivergent children and young people (including those with autism, ADHD or other ways of thinking and processing) and those with a learning disability.
In many cases people being supported are navigating complex systems of support, often in situations of significant stress.
As Harriet Wills, Product Lead at Outcomes Star, explains: “We developed the Navigation Stars to reflect the reality of not having the right support in place or trying to navigate multiple services while under intense pressure or even in crisis. The Stars acknowledge this complexity, putting people’s lived experience at the centre and creating a structure that helps them feel heard, understood and better supported.”
Why the Navigation Stars?
The Navigation Stars were developed in collaboration with NHS Devon & Plymouth Keyworking Programme and a wider group of practitioners, commissioners and people with lived experience.
The Keyworking programme provides coordinated, personalised support for children and young people who are autistic or who have a learning disability and are experiencing complex challenges and are at risk of hospital admission. Keyworkers help them and their families to feel listened to, involved in decisions, and able to access the right information and support at the right time, through a joined-up system of care.
Through this work, it became clear that many parents and carers were experiencing high levels of stress, frustration and were often near, or at the point of exhaustion. Families were often navigating multiple services, struggling to access the right support, and often not feeling heard.
For young people there were frequently feelings of not being listened to or understood and not having the right support.
For practitioners working across complex systems, there was often a lack of a clear, shared picture of what was happening for each family, making it harder to coordinate meaningful, joined-up support.
While the Outcomes Star approach recognises external factors and support generally, it became clear that these needed to be at the forefront in the development of these Stars.
A different lens on change: navigating, not just progressing
One of the key insights from the development was that for many parents and carers, change is not simply about being supported in personal progression.
Instead, it is about coordinating services to meet complex and evolving needs, services working in more joined up ways, and structured support to enable people to navigate systems, understanding what support is available, and support to access it. Across the development process, it became clear that experiences such as overwhelm, shutdown, or different communication needs were not occasional barriers, but a central part of how support needed to be delivered.
“In this Star we recognise the importance of nervous system regulation, communication needs and other needs being met by services and others around a young person. Validating, understanding and meeting these needs forms a key part of the journey to help a young person feel comfortable, valued and able to respond to changes and find what works for them,” says Harriet.
This led to a shift in emphasis.
Rather than focusing only on how an individual moves forward, the Navigation Star for Parents recognises that progress is shaped by systems changing to work for the person as well as the interaction between the person and the systems around them.
For young people, this often includes support needs around communication, confidence and engagement, where experiences such as anxiety, overwhelm or shutdown can affect how and when they are able to take part in conversations and activities. It also means putting in place adjustments and support in the environment to enable young people to thrive.
Completing the Navigation Star was a positive experience for me and my young person. It felt simple and easy. The "How I spend my time" area, in particular, was useful for highlighting my young person's greatest area of need.
A tailored Journey of Change
One of the most significant differences in the Navigation Stars is how the Journey of Change has been adapted to reflect this context.
In many Outcomes Stars, the early stages of change are often characterised by not being ready to engage, or a person not yet recognising the need for support. However, through the development process, it became clear that this did not reflect the experience of many parents in this context.
Instead, parents were often already actively seeking help – sometimes over long periods of time – but without being heard or able to access the right support. Many were in or close to crisis, feeling exhausted, frustrated and let down by the systems around them. They may also be receiving urgent support or have referrals put in place at any stage of the Journey of Change.
In this context, the initial progression is not about recognising the need for change or being ready to accept support. It is about feeling listened to, understood, and supported in a meaningful way.
As a result, the earlier stages of the Journey of Change focus less on readiness to engage, and more on the reality of navigating complex systems, where support may be unavailable, fragmented or not meeting needs.
In this context, being “stuck” often reflects the challenges of not being heard or able to access the right support.
This reflects a broader shift in emphasis. Rather than placing responsibility for change primarily on the individual or family, the Navigation Star recognises the role of services, systems and coordination in enabling progress.
Dr Anna Good, Evidence and Validity lead at Outcomes Star reflects: “it’s been interesting to develop a different type of Journey of Change that still captures the person themselves doing whatever they can but doesn’t put the pressure on them. We’ve adapted the stages of the Journey of Change so that the person being supported may not actually be taking many actions themselves at certain places – such as stage 3, because it is about the services being put into place.”
For parents in particular, this includes the significant effort involved in advocating for their child, understanding support available, and engaging with multiple professionals – often while under overwhelming stress due to not having the support they need for their child and family.
Progress, in this context, may include:
- clearer understanding of available support
- improved coordination between services
- more appropriate support being put in place
- increased confidence in navigating systems.
As Anna highlights: “I think there’s enough positive feedback that we heard that it will be valuable for young people and for parents where they really need something that ensures that all areas of their life are considered and that the support is put in place. It’s been really important that the Journey of Change is different and reflects that they need they need services to actually work for them.”
Learning through development
The Navigation Stars were developed through a collaborative process involving workshops, consultation and a pilot phase, bringing together practitioners, partner organisations and people with lived experience.
Full details of this process are available in the development reports: {NOTE to ADD!}
Through this work, a number of key themes emerged — particularly around the level of crisis and complexity involved, and the challenges this presents for engagement.
“One of the clearest things we heard through the development is the way complexity and crisis shapes people’s capacity to engage. Many young people and families are already overwhelmed, so it’s not about willingness – it’s about having the right support, flexibility and understanding in place to enable meaningful engagement,” says Harriet.
For many young people, engaging with structured tools can be difficult due to communication or learning needs, anxiety, or limited capacity in times of stress. This led to a range of adaptations, including more flexible approaches to using the Star and a wider range of accessible resources. Many of the young people the Star would be used with may have circumstances that mean they have limited bandwidth for engaging with the materials, so this meant that extra care was taken when creating the supporting resources to make them engaging and helpful, especially for young people and children who may need more support to process and communicate.
Anna reflects: “I think the thing that stands out for me was recognising that our standard resources and processes needed to be adapted to meet the needs of people being supported who were in crisis or who had different learning needs. We have created newly designed resources that are more accessible and developed a lot more guidance about how to use the Star, for example flexible completion over multiple sessions.”
New resources for the Navigation Star
There are brand new Star resources abailable for both versions of the Navigation Star – see the video below for a preview.
What this changes in practice
In practice, the Navigation Stars support a different kind of conversation between practitioners and families.
They help to:
- break down complex situations into manageable areas
- create space for collaborative reflection and understanding
- support clearer communication across services
- identify the support needed and how services can coordinate to provide this
- make progress visible, even when change is gradual
Feedback from the pilot highlighted how this can support deeper and more focused conversations, and deeper valuable insights for practitioners and people being supported.
“It helps parents to focus on specific aspects of their child’s life and think about these areas, the difficulties and the strengths. Parents are often distressed and overwhelmed, wanting to share lots of information and this can become hard to follow. The Star can provide structure which helps parents feel more contained and provide more in depth and reflective information.”
“Completing the Navigation Star was a positive experience for me and my young person. It felt simple and easy. The “How I spend my time” area, in particular, was useful for highlighting my young person’s greatest area of need. This is someone who has come such a long way with meeting her targets at Citywall, and so the next step of progress that she needs to make is for her growth at Citywall to begin to affect how she spends her time when she is not with us.”
They also provide a shared structure that can help practitioners and families work together more effectively, particularly where multiple services are involved:
“The Star created a space for families to express their challenges and successes, fostering a stronger relationship with service providers.”
“It was lovely to be able to spend time with the mother going through the tool and discussing her views and feelings on things.”
“It enables a conversation to happen about different areas of their life and helps identify where support is needed.”
“It was helpful to kind of let’s strip this back and if we look at things individually, we could see family life is going well, you’ve rated it a four. But other bits like routine is really difficult. And what can we do to make that a bit easier?”
Looking ahead
The Navigation Star represents an important development in the Outcomes Star approach, responding to contexts where complexity, crisis and system navigation are central to people’s experience.
By recognising these realities and supporting a more flexible, joined-up approach, the Navigation Stars aim to support practitioners in working alongside young people and families in a way that reflects their lived experience.
As this work develops further, the aim is to continue learning from practice and ensure that the Stars support meaningful, real-world change for the people who need it most.
Harriet sums up: “It has been incredibly rewarding to be part of this Star development and to create a Star that feels so aligned with the needs of people being supported and the aims of the keyworking services. We hope this feels like a Star that validates people’s experiences and values them as individuals while helping to support positive changes and adaptations that enable them to thrive.”