Which Star is right for you?
If you want to use the Outcomes Star approach in your organisation, the first question you’ll need to ask is, is Outcomes Star right for you? If it is, your next step is to work out which Star is right for you.
Since 2006, we’ve developed over 50 different Stars tailored to specific challenges – from housing and homelessness, to mental wellbeing and serious illness, to substance misuse and gambling recovery.
Our goal in developing new versions of the Stars is to create an outcomes measurement framework that supports relational, person-centred practice, and tailors a universal, whole-life view to the specific context of a sector or support setting. This gives more people the tools they need to achieve their potential and make the changes they want in the face of their individual circumstances.
With so many Stars available, how do you know which one is best for your practice? We know that it’s not always obvious. We hope this article will help you understand how to choose the right Star for you.
“I’ve been using the Star for about five years and it’s an essential part of what I do because it helps me and the young person to understand their journey”
– David Esdaile, Groundworks
Start with three simple questions
If you’re not sure which Star you need, a good place to start is by asking these three questions:
- What are the needs of the people you support and the broad areas of life that are important to them?
- What types of outcomes do you help the people you support to achieve?
- What type of service do you offer and how much one-to-one time do you have with the people you support?
For some sectors, it might be immediately clear which Star you need. For example, if your practice only works with individuals leaving the armed forces and seeking help with living independently, there’s one Star we offer for that purpose: the Independence Star.
However, other sectors have multiple Stars covering different challenges and needs. For example, we have a range of Star versions for use in family and parenting support settings, some for a broad range of services (such as Family Star Plus and Parent and Baby Star) and others for more focused services (such as New Mum Star for more intensive support for new mums, or Family Star (Relationships) for services focused on inter-parental conflict.)
Depending on the nature of your service, you may choose to use more than one Star. Some of our Stars are designed to complement each other well – such as the Family Star Plus for supporting effective parenting and My Star, for children – and we can run training to cover these combinations of Stars at the same time.
However, we generally advise that you should only use one version of the Star with each individual person at a time. This is because they are holistic tools, so each version is designed to encompass a person’s whole life picture and there would be a risk of significant overlap and repetition.
“Completing the Star was a very positive experience. It showed me the areas that I still need to work on but was very encouraging to see what I had achieved and how far I have come in other areas”
– My Brain Star pilot participant
Focus on the intended outcome
One of the difficulties with settling on the right Star for the people you support is that while you might be helping them with one particular challenge, their needs and situation don’t exist in a vacuum. For example, you might work with young people with ADHD, but it’s likely that your sessions with them will also touch on barriers at school or work, relationships and mental health.
That’s why it’s important to keep in mind the broad overall outcome they’re trying to achieve, not just the challenges they face. For example, if the goal of your service is to help young people with ADHD overcome challenges in the classroom and achieve their full educational potential, it might be the Student Star you need.
But if the impact of ADHD on education is only one part of a wider goal to support them to more effectively live with ADHD, the Attention Star might be more appropriate.
Also consider whether the outcome for the people you support involves self-reliance, or if they will always need to access a service. Most versions of the Star are designed with the goal of getting someone to a point where they no longer need a specialist service.
However, some Stars – such as the Home Star, Independent Living Star, Life Star, Wellbeing Star and Carers Star – are designed with ongoing service support in mind.
What if there isn’t a Star for my service?
Even with 50 versions of the Star currently available, it’s possible that there isn’t one that properly matches the needs of the people you support and the outcomes they’re working towards. If that’s the case, let us know. We have an ongoing roadmap for Star development, however we do not accept commissions for new Stars and have a rigorous process for prioritising our development of new Stars vs continually investing in and updating existing Stars.
A start point can be to test out the Star version that is the closest fit in a small pilot, and we can advise you on how best to approach that.
Get help with finding the right Star for you
For help finding the right Star for your practice, or if you know the Star you need and want to get started, get in touch with our team.