How Outcomes Star supports the delivery of relational public services
A new book chapter sets out how Outcomes Star supports relational service delivery. Evidence and Validity Lead Anna Good examines what it has to say.
In 2021 we published ‘Enabling Help’, a description of the kind of help that really makes a difference when supporting people grappling with multiple and complex issues. It is help that is very much aligned with calls for services to be ‘strengths-based’, ‘trauma-informed’ and ‘person-centred’. The six principles of Enabling Help are below.
In a chapter of a new book, ‘Futures in Public Management: The Emerging Relational Approach to Public Services’, Outcomes Star co-founder Joy MacKeith takes the thinking a step further. Below are six distinctive design features of the Star that can turn aspirations for enabling help into reality:
1. Dual-purpose tools: The Star embeds measurement in service delivery, so that completing it can lead to increased agency, hope and the ability to take action. Reviewing the distance travelled further supports a developmental, motivational approach.
2. Holistic: Outcomes Stars include all relevant areas of someone’s life rather than focusing only on the presenting need.
3. Completed collaboratively: Star readings and action plans are co-produced through a conversation between the individual and the person supporting them, embedding a relational approach.
4. Focused on engagement: By focusing on the relationship with the issues the individual faces rather than severity, the Star supports a developmental approach, looking at next steps and using the Journey of Change to inform the actions needed, bearing in mind contextual factors.
5. Built on a developmental model of change: The Journey of Change underpinning the Star also encourages a developmental focus by giving a sense of how new skills and perspectives can evolve. It also supports development of services because the data links to clearly defined, qualitatively different stages.
6. The visual display and shared sense-making: Sharing and discussing the Star graphic used to display readings supports a relational approach to making sense of the situation, links between areas, actions needed and reviewing progress together.
What are the implications of this for public policy?
The chapter makes two key points. The first is that tools such as Outcomes Stars can make a big difference in initiatives to deliver services that are relational, flexible, strengths-based and developmental. The second is that to fully realise these benefits, systems and policies need to facilitate rather than get in the way of using the Star as it is intended. This means principles of enabling help need to be applied in service management and commissioning, so that they are:
Relational rather than transactional: building shared goals between different parts of the service delivery system rather than one part telling the other what to do. It also means building trust to support long-term collaboration rather than competition between service providers.
Developmental rather than pre-determined: taking a learning approach to achieving goals and measuring outcomes rather than pre-determining what is important.
Motivational/strengths-based rather than deficit based: harnessing and developing the natural motivation and capacities of the workforce to deliver effective help rather than rigid policies.
Flexible rather than off the shelf: creating a service system that flexes around the person rather than expecting them to fit to the service.
Holistic and contextual rather than compartmentalized: a joined up and coherent network of services.
87% of Outcomes Star clients agree that the Star helps practitioners to provide a more tailored service¹
The chapter also provides some evidence that the Stars can support commissioners and managers to work in this way, for example through providing a shared language and measurement approach that reflects what is happening on the ground – though more work is needed to explore how to do this successfully.
Here at Outcomes Star, we are always keen to support good use of the Star at all levels. For example, we are working on a ‘stakeholder access’ feature on Outcomes Star Online for commissioners and others who would like to engage with Star data more deeply. We would also like to collaborate with managers, funders and commissioners to create case studies of enabling management and commissioning.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to discuss these or any other issues related to the Star. If you’d like to explore more about Star data and implementing the Star you can join one of our free webinars.
Footnotes and further information
¹Good (2019) Outcomes Star client survey
The book chapter summarised in this article is titled: ‘From aspiration to realisation: How the Outcomes Star supports the delivery and management of relational, holistic, flexible, developmental and strengths-based public services’.
To read the full chapter and all the other contributions you can buy ‘Futures in Public Management: The Emerging Relational Approach to Public Services’ .
Edited by Rob Wilson; Hannah Hesselgreaves; Max French; Melissa Hawkins; David Jamieson; Martin King; Jonathan Kimmitt
Enabling Help report
You can read the full Enabling Help report here.