Outcomes Stars 2 | Triangle

New GIRFEC mapping guidance for Scottish organisations and practitioners using My Star (Scotland)

Posted on 26th January 20237th February 2023 by Donna

My Star aligns with Scottish Government’s ‘Getting it right for every child’ approach

In November 2022, Triangle published new GIRFEC mapping guidance for licensed Outcomes Star users of My Star (Scotland).

The My Star (Scotland) guidance for workers covers how to use Star data to report against the eight indicators of well-being (often referred to as SHANARRI). It can be found within the Star Online system via the following link to the resources section: Resources – Triangle (staronline.org.uk) and clicking into the ‘Additional Star Resources – Scotland’. There you will find the following documents:

My Star Guidance for Workers (Scotland)
My Star Chart (Scotland)
My Star Flashcards (Scotland)

Within this section, similar guidance is also available for the Family Star (Scotland) and the Family Star (Early Years) (Scotland).

History

Wellbeing sits at the heart of the Scottish GIRFEC approach to provide tailored support and help for children, young people and their parents.

To help ensure everyone (children, young people, parents, and the services that support them) has a common understanding of what wellbeing and the GIRFEC principles mean, practitioners and organisations are asked to consider each of the eight SHANARRI well-being wheel indicators when working together to address individual issues.

The approach considers children’s well-being to be rights-based, strengths-based, holistic and adaptable enough to take into account the stage of development and the complexity of each child or young person’s individual life circumstances. It provides a consistent framework and shared language for promoting, supporting and safeguarding the well-being of children and young people.

SHANARRI Indicators

Safe
Healthy
Achieving
Nurtured
Active
Respected
Responsible
Included

My Star (Scotland) was developed in 2015. At that time the GIRFEC framework and the associated SHANARRI indicators were in their infancy. Consequently, although many of the outcome areas of My Star directly related to the eight SHANARRI well-being indicators, these were not automatically included or referred to within the My Star (Scotland) resources.

In 2022, during Outcomes Star training sessions facilitated by Licensed Trainers with North Lanarkshire Council, involving staff from education, children & family services, feedback suggested benefit in creating bespoke guidance which, whilst not changing the content or data obtained from using My Star, directly linked the outcome areas of My Star with the eight SHANARRI well-being indicators.

Staff from these services aim to support children and their families to thrive within their families, school and the local community. It was felt there would be distinct benefits for staff having clear correlation guidance between the child or young person’s circumstances, the interventions supporting them and how this meets the GIRFEC framework.

The development of the mapping guidance was a collaborative process involving managers and staff from North Lanarkshire Council and Triangle.

After several months of work, My Star/ SHANARRI mapping guidance was agreed, and the supporting materials were produced. These resources were then circulated to all organisations in Scotland using the My Star for further feedback and comment.

Following a subsequent feedback review, the resources were finalised and published in November 2022.

If you are a Star Online user, these documents can be associated with your service by your Account Lead, who will give you access to the materials required. Alternatively, if you are not a Star Online user, your Account Lead will have individual access to the system and can save these documents to your own internal systems for distribution and use.

It is hoped that the guidance and associated materials will be of benefit to all organisations in Scotland using My Star and will assist both at an operational level in providing support to the child, young person and their families, but also at a service level, whereby services are easily able to link their delivery of services to the well-being indicators outlined by the Scottish Government.

Background information

My Star for children was originally developed in 2013 in collaboration with Family Action, Action for Children, Westminster Council and Coram. In 2015, Triangle developed My Star (Scotland) in collaboration with Fife Council and input from Dumfries and Galloway Council.

Further information

If you would like further information about My Star or the Outcomes Star, please email us at info@triangleconsulting.co.uk

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Scottish Association for the Study of Offending (SASO) Annual Conference 2022

Posted on 26th January 202330th January 2023 by Donna

I am also an ex-Police Officer, and following my retirement from the force, I worked for several years in a national charity. Much of the work there was focused on rehabilitating offenders and supporting people within or on the cusp of the Criminal Justice system. As such, I have a genuine interest in things relating to the Criminal Justice system and was keen to attend the Scottish Association for the Study of Offending (SASO) conference on November 11^th 2022, which focussed on access to j, in particular, the obstacles to obtaining justice from both sides of the Criminal Justice system in Scotland, for victim and perpetrator alike.

I looked forward to hearing about the current challenges and learning more about the range of successful recent initiatives and plans to support everyone within society to get access to justice when they need it.

As a result of the recent pandemic, this was the first face-to-face conference in recent years, bringing together a variety of interested individuals and front-line organisations working in the justice arena. The keynote speakers were all high-ranking professionals within their disciplines discussing their personal experiences of the justice system in Scotland. The conference also allowed them to propose some ‘blue sky’ ideas to help ensure access to justice will be available to everyone who needs it in the coming years.

The conference highlighted and celebrated the invaluable work undertaken by front-line services and staff. It was also an excellent opportunity for delegates to connect, network, learn from each other, and share experiences.

Whilst some initial design work had already commenced, Sheriff Principal Aisha Anwar spoke about the various technological advancements developed due to the pandemic, including the use of ‘virtual’ courtrooms and evidence provided remotely via digital platforms. She also highlighted several new procedural improvements, including ‘electronic’ warrants and fast-tracking domestic abuse cases, designed to streamline the sometimes lengthy legal processes. These developments are intended to ensure that the justice system is demonstrably ‘fair’ to all and provide appropriate and timely access to justice for both an accused person and the victims of crime.

The next speaker was Andrea Coomer, the Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Throughout a very passionate presentation, she highlighted the apparent lack of diversity in the Judiciary system, particularly in England and Wales, and consequently, the noticeable lack of trust by a majority of the general public, particularly with young people and people from ethnic minorities. She provided several examples of young people being unable to access justice. She posed questions about the suitability of court proceedings when the reality was that the person might be suffering from mental health issues, be a victim of abuse themselves or be disadvantaged in accessing legal representation due to their personal circumstances. Her plea was that ‘legacy’ legal systems need to change as we move towards the future.

The last keynote speaker, Ronaldo Renucci KC, the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland, spoke at length about the practical issues faced by defence solicitors, including a declining number of solicitors, a lack of new defence solicitors coming into the field, the capping of legal aid, the increasing amount of work for existing defence solicitors, the rising number of new clients and increased case preparation requirements. These issues are even more significant for cases involving sex crimes, which are very distressing for all persons involved (prosecution and defence alike). He emphasised the right for everyone to have the ability to access justice, and that included obtaining appropriate legal representation. However, this is becoming difficult due to the limiting factors raised, and he put forward several ideas about improving the current situation.

The afternoon session was an interactive session where groups of delegates reviewed scenario’s where access to justice was complicated due to a vast range of legal and organisational processes. Throughout these scenario discussions, it was highlighted that there was still much work to be done to ensure access to justice reaches everyone who needs it – accused persons, victims, and the public in general.

Whilst the use of the Outcomes Star might not at first glance appear to directly link to getting ‘access to justice’, it is relevant when organisations support individuals throughout their journey within the Criminal Justice system.

Clearly, everyone has different support needs from the system, and using the Justice Star could assist with that.

The Justice Star recognises that each person requires an individually tailored plan to support them throughout their journey towards and through the Criminal Justice system. This could include after being charged, post-conviction, in prison and re-entering the community upon leaving prison. These tailored plans would involve having effective supportive networks, supportive relationships and a sense of community which is vital for well-being but also for diverting the individual away from previous criminal activity and out of the Justice system itself.

In addition to the Justice Star, The Empowerment Star assists survivors of domestic abuse in getting their life back on track and dealing with the trauma of what’s happened to them.

The person-centred approach used by the Outcomes Star was very much at the heart of the Panel discussions, where representatives from the Scottish Human Rights Commission, Victim Support Scotland, Scottish Prison Service and Local Authority Social Work, highlighted the need for better action planning and more creative solutions, to achieve more sustainable results irrespective of the person being the offender or victim.

At Triangle, we often discuss the importance of enabling and empowering people by being person-centred, strengths-based and using trauma-informed language. However, as highlighted by most of the speakers, several external factors linked to the Criminal Justice system will directly impact what is achievable by a person or supporting organisation. The most obvious was available finance. It was commented upon frequently that a lack of funding directly affected the quality of service and support that could be provided, significantly impacting the levels of access to justice a person could achieve. In some cases, it was more of a ‘post-code lottery’ as to whether necessary support to access and achieve justice was available.

It was evident, however, that additional money alone won’t fix the problems. The culture of the current Criminal Justice system, being based on traditional processes, procedures and even standards of dress, doesn’t make it user-friendly or even recognisable to people accessing it. It’s like a strange new world they don’t recognise or understand. Therefore, whilst there is a degree of familiarity with using traditional ways, there is also a need to move forward with the times, and several presentations indeed demonstrated a move in that direction.

The conference provided several examples of innovative service delivery developed to meet the demands of a changing society, mainly due to the recent pandemic. These new ways of working will continue to put the individual at the centre of any new processes. As the Outcomes Star has been demonstrated to be an effective tool in determining needs, highlighting gaps in service provision, and providing data analysis to support change, I hope Triangle may be involved in future discussions around this change process.

Overall, plenty for me to ponder relative to the Criminal Justice system in Scotland. I look forward to continuing some of these discussions with existing or new Scottish clients in the future.

Further information

If you would like further information about the Justice Star or the Empowerment Star, please email us at info@triangleconsulting.co.uk

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More about our Stars for the Criminal Justice Sector

Empowerment Star | Triangle (outcomesstar.org.uk)

Outcomes Star ‘virtual training’ package developed as a result of Covid-19

Posted on 26th January 20232nd February 2023 by Donna

Delivering increased flexibility and choice for UK and international clients

When the Covid-19 virus shut down the world in March 2020, many organisations had to quickly revise their face-to-face training to deliver online learning. Our training team did a fantastic job of rising to the challenge, and within weeks we had a virtual training offer, we adopted new digital learning strategies to produce an online version of the Core Star training course by May 2020.

Now the Outcomes Star virtual training delivery has been implemented for a while. It’s time to evaluate the engagement and benefits and explore the importance of high-quality Outcomes Star training in a classroom or a virtual learning setting.

Why is engagement so crucial to learning, especially online?

If you’ve ever taught a course, you’ll have seen how easy it is for learners to refrain from paying attention, participating or putting forth effort. The level of engagement and understanding directly impacts an individual’s ability to apply Star information and skills we teach in practice.

A key challenge for us was how to emulate our in-person Outcomes Star learning experience in a live synchronous virtual environment. We were determined to create the same high level of engagement, enjoyment, and interactivity learners experienced face-to-face and virtually to ensure the Outcome Stars are understood and used well.

Key members of our training team upskilled and undertook industry leading LPI online training course designer and facilitation qualifications to meet the challenge.

We also explored technology options and now mainly deliver training using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other platforms upon request.

Creating virtual training was an exciting evolution for us. We learned how to use embedded tools such as polls, chat, whiteboards, and breakout rooms to bring people together for valuable discussion, practice, and collaboration. We discovered we could use these tools to stimulate thoughtful and fruitful interactions to enable peer learning virtually. We now use a range of interactive activities that support and reinforce content to help virtual learners connect with the content.

We have been delighted with the engagement and participation levels. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and reassuring. We know virtual learners feel confident in their understanding of the Star and have a positive outlook on their learning experience.

“Thank you, … that was genuinely some of the best training I have had virtually. You were very engaging and understanding”

"The trainer was excellent at executing the delivery, and I will be adopting some of her techniques within remote delivery"

“The ability of the facilitator to adapt to the experiences of the participants showed their in-depth knowledge of the Outcomes Star and how it can be used to benefit our clients”

“The training was excellent. The way it was delivered and explained really helped me understand the Star”

We found organisations welcomed the flexibility, saving time and money.

Traditionally face-to-face learning is a one-day event. If you can’t get everyone on your team there, they miss the training, which is now a thing of the past with remote training. Our remote Star training option is also available in ½ day modules, suiting clients not wishing to close a department for a whole day, reducing travel costs and time, and supporting geographically dispersed teams with networking opportunities. Training remotely means we can also match your service with trainers knowledgeable about your sector, wherever you are.

Virtual Core Star training advantages

½ day modules
Reduced travel costs
Less time away from the job
Convenience of not needing to travel physically
Opportunities for isolated or dispersed teams to interact and network

Whilst many organisations opt for the ease and convenience of virtual training. There are many situations when training your staff face-to-face is the right, if not better, option. There are several advantages to conducting face-to-face training as opposed to doing it virtually to consider.

Face-to-face Core Star training advantages

Being part of group learning ‘live’ is a powerful learning method
Fosters connection and collaborative social interaction
Strengthens workplace relationships
Trainers adapting to body language leads to better learning results
No option to multi-task

Why is Outcomes Star training so important?

When the Outcomes Stars are used well, they have the capacity to transform lives and improve services in a wide range of social provision sectors.

We learned early on that although the Star looks like a simple and intuitive tool, training to understand its values and how to use it properly is vital. Without training, the Journey of Change, the User Guides, and the detailed descriptions of the scales (the numbers on the Star) can too often be put to one side by practitioners. Unfortunately, using the Star in this way undermines the meaningfulness of the data and the benefits for the practitioner’s keywork and the person receiving support.

The Outcomes Star is a trauma-informed relational tool that supports change in keywork relationships. It helps practitioners and the people they support to have better conversations.

It does this by helping create a better quality of listening to develop a shared understanding of a person’s life, priorities, and needs from their perspective, using an evidence-based conversational framework to guide the conversation.

As well as the tools themselves, training and guidance around the Outcomes Star emphasises flexibility in responding to a client’s window of tolerance and preferences – for example, about when and how to introduce and discuss the different outcome areas.

There is also guidance about identifying appropriate action plans in a trauma-informed way that is sensitive to the client’s capacity to drive things forward themselves.

It’s important to understand the Star’s focus on engagement, choices, and actions is more valuable than a tool that measures the severity of problems because the Journey of Change breaks down complex, personal change into small steps.

It helps spotlight the positive shifts and incremental progress that can be overlooked. Identifying and celebrating the small steps that make a difference in people’s complex lives is a key benefit of the Star– helping to counter-act any reliance on unrealistic expectations, which can have a detrimental, demotivating effect.

The Outcomes Star tools have many features that directly support trauma-informed working that we explore in detail in training, including:

Relationship-based
Empowerment
Focuses on the present, not someone’s history
Strengths-based not deficit-based
Holistic

Outcomes Star training equips practitioners and licensed trainers with a deeper understanding of the theory and values behind the Star so that they can build this into their practice, training, and induction processes.

Whichever training delivery option you choose, our flexible hybrid offer will meet your practitioner and manager’s need to understand and use the Outcome Star well in your service.

Understand how to co-create sustainable outcomes for people receiving support
Measure outcomes for adults and children
Analysis your data and innovate service delivery

Making an impact

As part of our strategic review in 2019, we surveyed our clients to find out what difference the Star makes. We expected broadly positive findings, but the appreciation and impact delighted us.

Here are a few highlights:

87% of Star users report that their keywork is more effective as a result of using the Star
81% said that Star data reports enabled them to monitor and report on their outcomes more effectively
95% say that the Star supports good conversations and collaboration between staff and service users
92% say that it helps service users to get an overview of their situation
93% say that the Star supports person-centred, strengths-based working
92% say that the Star motivates staff and service users because it makes change visible.

Licensed Trainers and the CPD Community

Licensed Trainers (LTs) are individuals who have received training and achieved the LT qualification to deliver training and support effectively within their organisations. Licensed Trainers become part of a community of Outcomes Star trainers.

The ‘train the trainer’ route can be cost-effective for large organisations.

At the end of 2021, we launched our of CPD sessions for Licensed Trainers to educate, inform, and inspire for free. Our CPD program has increased workplace engagement, improved communication, and generated significantly more opportunities to share top training tips and good practices via professional peer-to-peer learning.

In 2022, we delivered a wide range of informative and interactive sessions focussed on supporting our community of licensed trainers (LTs) globally. We aim to provide key ‘takeaways’ in every session for licensed trainers to use in their own training rooms immediately. The intensive development and delivery process results have been very positive, and over 66% of our Licensed Trainers globally have already attended sessions.

These sessions cover a range of subjects and draw on specialist knowledge and information across Triangle and beyond.

Please view our 2023 CPD calendar to book.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information on becoming a Licensed Trainer.

New resources for Licensed Trainers coming soon

New dual face-to-face and virtual training slide deck and training manual will be available for Licensed Trainers from March 2023. Read more.

We look forward to training you soon, face-to-face or remotely, to demonstrate how well the Stars measure service user progression and distance travelled, how they can highlight areas for service delivery improvements, and illustrate your social impact to funders. #Enablinghelp

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The Outcomes Star is available under licence with training in the UK and internationally.

We usually need around 4-6 weeks’ notice to organise a trainer and materials, so please speak to us about your timescales.

Training prices start from £240 per person.

If you have any questions about remote training or new Stars, or want any information on the new Star Online or anything else, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@triangleconsulting.co.uk

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#SheMatters Conference Oct 2022

Posted on 7th November 202226th January 2023 by Donna

I am Marie Buss, I support Triangles clients who are typically Local Authorities, NHS organisations, and charities, to use the Outcomes Stars well within their services across the South East of England.

I am also an ex-Probation Officer, so I was delighted to recently attend the #SheMatters conference on Oct 21^st, 2022 as I wanted to hear about the current challenges the sector faces today and learn about the range of successful initiatives supporting women in Prison and the community.

The #SheMatters conference, organised by Imago Dei Prison Ministry, brought together a variety of front-line organisations working with women in prisons across the Southeast to talk about their work, and hear from many women who spoke about their ‘lived experiences’ of the UK’s criminal justice system. The conference celebrated the valuable work of front-line services and was an excellent opportunity for delegates to connect, network, learn from each other, and share experiences.

Here at Triangle, many of our service provider clients deliver support services to women and men in the criminal justice sector using a range of Outcomes Stars. Unsurprisingly, several speakers’ views chimed with our mission and values. They spoke with a real passion for women to receive trauma-informed care, about the importance of collaboration and transparency, and highlighted the importance of enabling help by giving women a voice and some control over how their sentences are delivered.

Abi Gardner, the Deputy Governor for HMP Send, spoke about the women’s journey in the criminal justice system much like we talk about the Journey of Change. Abi’s commitment to offering a range of interventions within the prison system and the recognition that every woman is an individual requiring a tailored sentence plan was inspiring. Abi spoke about the importance of delivering support to women at their own pace, based on their unique priorities and needs. She highlighted the need for women in Prison to feel connected, gain peer support and receive support from different agencies, and feel a sense of community and togetherness to create change. Abi also highlighted how critical physical activity is to human well-being. Particularly women (and men) in confinement.

When we develop Outcomes Stars with collaborators and the people on the receiving end of the support, having supportive networks, supportive relationships, a sense of community, and exercise is always vital for well-being. All these areas are conversation topics between the person receiving the support the support worker when using the Outcomes Star.

When I completed Outcomes Stars with people on probation some years ago, I found that the Star enables better conversations about a person’s life and creates a shared viewpoint of where they were at, which led to better action planning, and ultimately more sustainable results. Abi echoed this approach as being the prison’s aspiration, Send Prison try to meet the women ‘where they are at’, while also mentioning the difficulty of developing creative solutions due to the restrictions within the CJS. Even so, I was grateful to hear Send Prison is taking steps to develop innovative solutions for women.

At Triangle, we often talk about the importance of enabling and empowering people by being person-centered, strengths-based, and using trauma-informed language. However, in the CJS field, several dependencies impact what prisons can achieve. The regular changes in Government strategy, change in Criminal Justice Ministers, priorities and funding streams changing so frequently often means plans aren’t seen through, meaning less focussed attention on what matters. As if to highlight this point, just twenty-four hours before Abi spoke at the conference, we saw the resignation of yet another UK Prime Minister.

What does matter? Funding, staff recruitment, attainment of staff, and better sentencing solutions than we currently have.

Speakers from Kent probation spoke about how the sentencing delivered to women often sets them up to fail. In response, they have developed an innovative women’s project.

As an alternative to women attending a meeting in a Probation office which can often be triggering. Women were instead invited to a safe space, with their children, to meet other women, whilst getting support from the third sector, engaging in a range of holistic activities, and receiving relevant advice on a weekly basis. This project is achieving better results for women and their children experiencing the UK’s CJS.

I found this project an excellent example of innovative service delivery, developed after reflecting on the support they offered and identifying what does and doesn’t work. Triangle actively encourages and supports clients to use their Star data to highlight gaps or needs in service provision and provide Star data analysis support upon request.

My day at the conference ended with an unexpected encounter with a client, Advance Minerva, who use the Justice Star. They are funded to deliver the Commissioned Rehabilitation Service Provision (CRS) for women in Kent. They discussed how men built the (CJS) system for men and that female specialist services are sorely needed. We conversed about the need for gender-specific services and tools, which left me with plenty of thoughts to take back to our development team.

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More about our Stars for the Criminal Justice Sector

The Justice Star is designed for use with people serving a sentence, approaching release from prison or in the community. Preview the Justice Star

For people with long custodial sentences, we recommend the Recovery Star Secure

Explore all the Stars available for the criminal justice sector

CAMHS National Summit 2022: The power of listening

Posted on 28th October 202231st October 2022 by Donna

Speakers noted the UK is in the grip of a mental health crisis, with children and young people suffering in particular. Referrals to NHS Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) have increased by 180% during the last five years, creating significant pressure on services and raising the threshold for support and treatment. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) model is routinely used to tot up all the trauma children have experienced, creating feelings of bleakness for support workers. Still, the CAMHS summit were determined we have hope and talked a lot about harnessing the power of listening to help support.

Speakers acknowledged it’s grim out there for young people who are suffering. As Dr Harriet Stewart said, “young people’s mental health was worsening at an alarming rate before the pandemic. In the aftermath of Covid, children present at CAMHS with more complex needs. Staff are exhausted, burnt out, and leaving the service”. When Dr Stewart said, quite bluntly, “if we don’t get it right, we’ll ruin their lives, their opportunities,” it was hard not to feel like we are, as a society, failing our young people. But as she said, “we need to think we can do this.”

I also heard from young people like Katie Hickson, who spoke up about her experiences. She is a young woman who gets involved in conversations with the government and campaigns, making me feel hugely hopeful. Katie so eloquently reminded us, “young people already have a voice; they don’t need to be given it. It’s the job of the professionals, the service providers, and parents to listen to their voice and provide opportunities for them to be heard”.

I also loved hearing Max Davie (who very impressively managed to squeeze in a reference to CBeebies’ Octonauts while debunking some of the myths around early help) talk about listening to the difficulties young people were experiencing as we’ve become a bit fixated on labels, but Max demonstrated the importance of listening first and diagnosing later.

Nicola Harvey, the author of Mindful Little Yogis, shows us how active listening can help young people feel psychologically safe and that without providing that psychological safety, we can’t expect young people to grow up resilient. Reiterating without listening first, we can’t expect better outcomes.

There was a lot of agreement around the need to fund early support hubs, that young people can access without needing a referral.

How can the Outcomes Star help your service?

The Outcomes Stars are listening and conversational tools helping services transform lives. They are keywork tools and measurement tools. If your organisation provides early intervention mental health support for young people, My Mind Star has seven key outcome areas designed to open up conversations between support workers and the young person about their life. My Mind Star doesn’t assess how severe a mental ‘problem’ is. It explores where the young person is now and where they would like to get to in the future. It is a holistic co-production tool involving listening and discussing a young person’s life, situation, priorities, hopes and aspirations. Together the worker and young person co-create goals and action plans. Using the scales to measure the distance a young person travels through the journey of change over a period of time. Star data also helps managers assess workers caseloads to help reduce burnout. Star data also provides service improvement insight to analyse if the support provided is working, individual progression data and aggregated service level data to report impact to funders.

What I personally like about the Outcomes Star approach is that it starts with listening and, when used well, puts young people at the centre of their journey. Rather than defining a young person by statistics, by how many ACEs they’ve experienced, or whether they are ‘unwell enough to warrant service or support, the Outcomes Star is a collaborative tool that supports and measures change.

Learn more about My Mind Star

Guiding Stars: How the Outcomes Stars help build hope and self-esteem

Posted on 28th June 202228th June 2022 by Outcomes Star

Having recently returned from a long holiday, I am re-engaging freshly with Triangle’s work, creating Stars, training and supporting people to use them well and sharing our wider vision of an enabling service delivery system.

Returning after a solo hiking along the beautiful Cleveland Way, I had the chance to see our work with fresh eyes, and ask myself the question, “After 20 years of working on the Outcomes Star, why does it still matter to me so much?”

The answer that came when I asked myself that question was this: Working with the Outcomes Star gives people access to a developmental framing of their situation. The Star presents their situation as a time of challenge, not a sign of failure. The fact that they need help is an opportunity for them to draw on their existing strengths and develop new ones rather than being a sign of weakness. For people who are so often seen as a set of problems, having access to this hopeful, growthful narrative really matters. It is a simple reframing but it can make all the difference.

The Star reflects the person’s life back to them; they see they are a traveller moving forwards on their journey in life, rather than someone who has come to a dead end. The endpoints or the tips on the Star point to the way things could be, and in some cases they show what is already working well, giving people something to celebrate as well as offering things to work towards.

Stars have always been a navigational guide and a symbol of hope. Outcomes Stars are aptly named because they do just that – offer hope and guide us in the right direction. They don’t tell us exactly how to get there or exactly what it will look like when we arrive. That is something only the person completing the Star can discover for themselves. But they do shine the light forwards and give us the self-belief and self-confidence to keep moving forwards toward a better life.

We all need to see ourselves as heroes in our own journey – facing challenges and setbacks, but achieving and finding a way through as well.

As I reflect on my 20 years helping guide Triangle through the many challenges and triumphs of our work, I feel proud to be able to play a part in helping others move forward on their life’s journey. Refreshed by my holiday I am as hopeful and excited as ever at the potential of the Outcomes Stars to support and embed an enabling approach to service delivery.

Joy MacKeith, Founding Director

To find out more about Triangle’s vision for service delivery read “Enabling Help: How the social provision can work better for the people it services”. You can download the report or watch this video of Joy speaking about the key ideas in the report.

The Family Star Plus within the Supporting Families Programme (2022-25)

Posted on 27th June 202229th June 2022 by Donna

All local authorities delivering Supporting Families must have an approved Outcome Plan setting out their indicators of eligibility with associated family level outcomes against headline objectives set out in the programme guidance.

Since the start of the supporting families programme (formerly called the ‘Troubled families programme’), many local authorities have been using the Family Star Plus as part of evidencing outcomes within their approved Outcomes Plans. This version of the Star was developed specifically to be aligned with the programme’s objectives.

We are currently putting together guidance to show how the Family Star Plus fits the increased list of headline outcomes in the ‘Supporting Families Outcomes Framework 2022-25’, which will be in effect from 3 October 2022:

The new framework identifies ‘practitioner assessments and contacts’ or ‘Practitioner and/or self-assessment’ as valid data sources as part of the evidence within all of the ten headline outcomes, and the Outcomes Star, while collaboratively completed, fits within this category.

‘Validated outcome measures’ are also suggested as evidence for meeting some outcomes. The validation of the Family Star Plus as an outcomes measure, including evidence of ‘inter-rater reliability’ and ‘predictive validity’ is reported in a recent peer-reviewed journal article (Good & MacKeith, 2021).

We will publish the 2^nd Edition of the Family Star Plus shortly as well as guidance on how to use the Family Star Plus (2^nd Ed.) within the new Supporting Families framework.

Please contact our Research Analyst, Dr Anna Good (anna@triangleconsulting.co.uk) if you would like to find out more.

Refugee Week: What is it, and how do the Outcomes Stars support this year’s theme of ‘healing’?

Posted on 27th June 202229th June 2022 by Outcomes Star

Refugee Week celebrates the contributions of refugees to challenge negative stereotypes and create a space where refugees can be seen and heard beyond their experience of displacement. It aims to celebrate community, mutual care, and the human ability to start again.

Triangle has been working with the Refugee sector since 2018, when the UK saw an increasing number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children needing our help. Many Local Authorities lacked the experience and tools they needed to support these vulnerable children holistically. The worsening situation inspired Pathways to Independence and the South-East Strategic Partnership for Migration to approach Triangle to develop a new version of the Outcomes Star to help them better support young asylum seekers.

We were delighted to publish the Planning Star just over a year after starting the intensive development process. This Star is available in the following languages: English, Amharic, Arabic, Farsi, Tigrinya, Dari, Pashto, and Kurdish, with Ukrainian coming soon.

“The Planning Star is very trauma-informed and very visual, which is vital when working unaccompanied asylum-seeking with children who may not speak English”.

Around the same time, The Refugee Council, the UK’s leading charity working with refugees, also approached us to develop an Outcomes Star to support the increasing number of refugees arriving in the UK.

After 18 months of intensive development in collaboration with the Refugee Council, several smaller organisations and people with lived experience, we published The Integration Star. The Integration Star is now available in English, Swahili, Farsi, Arabic, and Somalia and has been mapped onto the Home Office’s Indicators of Integration framework.

A worker sums it up “The Integration Star is a really powerful, clear tool that can visualise a client’s support needs. I think it provokes conversations that highlight support needs that may have otherwise been missed”.

We are delighted to be able to publicise Refugee Week and highlight the contribution that refugees can make to their new country when enabled to heal, find their feet and make a fresh start. The Integration Star and the Planning Star are playing their part in that process and we look forward to continuing to support the healing and flourishing of refugees in the UK and around the world.

Find out how the Stars work

See our Stars

The Outcomes Stars are evidence-based tools designed to support and measure personal change. There are now almost 50 Outcomes Stars available for a range of sectors and a wide variety of complex life challenges. They are used by over 1000 organisations globally.

The Integration Star and the Planning Star are available to all organisations with a Star licence, and training is available for workers and managers

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Triangle Consulting Social Enterprise is an innovative, mission-led organisation that exists to help people reach their highest potential and live meaningful and fulfilling lives, often in the context of social disadvantage, trauma, disability or illness.

The Refugee Council works with individuals and families to make sure they can live safe, fulfilling lives in the UK after being forced to seek refuge from persecution and human rights abuses overseas.

The development of this Star was part funded by the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.

Other organisations taking part in the development of the Integration Star included: RETAS (Refugee Education Training Advice Service) Leeds, Leeds Refugee Forum, Path Yorkshire, Goodwin Development Trust, Humber Community Advice Services (H-CAS), Refugee Action Kingston, Iranian Association, Diversity Living Services, Bahar Women’s Association, Action for Community Development, West Yorkshire Somali Association, DAMASQ, Stepping Stone 4, Leeds Swahili Community.

Family Star Plus – draft edition 2 now ready for feedback

Posted on 27th June 2022 by Outcomes Star

Tell us what you think

A year ago, we launched our review of the Family Stars with a comprehensive call to all users to find out what they thought. We now have a draft new edition of the Family Star Plus out for consultation. We will finalise it in the autumn, apply the learning to the other Family Stars and publish new, improved editions in spring 2023.

Our commitment to the suite of Stars

As a social enterprise, Triangle invests part of the Star licence in keeping the suite of Stars under review and up to date. We stay abreast of changes in sectors and keep learning alongside our collaborators. After 20 years, almost 50 Stars and over 60 research studies, we’ve learnt a lot. And much has changed and continues to change. In reviewing the Family Stars, we set out to address some aspects of the language and better reflect the increasingly challenging external environment, with more families experiencing poverty.

Language changes in Edition 2

We wanted the new editions to be even more strengths-based, trauma-informed, conversational and accessible. We addressed specific wording issues that users of the Stars raised, such as replacing ‘effective parenting’ at the top of the scale with ‘self-reliance’, the point at which families no longer need the service to ensure their children can thrive. We have better worded the scales to avoid any suggestion of blame or triggers for people while keeping the essential clarity needed between stages.

Fit with the Supporting Families outcomes framework 2022-2025

The original Family Star dates back to 2010. We later published the Family Star Plus in response to the UK government’s Supporting Families initiative (originally ‘Troubled Families’) and mapped the Family Star to the Scottish government outcomes framework. We have already mapped Edition 2 to the new Supporting Families outcomes framework and added references to some Star scales to clarify the fit while staying relevant to the diverse and international users of this Star.

The new editions keep the same outcome areas and Journey of Change. They will replace the current editions in 2023 without any impact on your reporting or training – though it may be an excellent opportunity to consider refreshing how you use the Star to ensure you get the most from it.

We are inviting Family Star users to review the draft new edition and tell us what you think.

Please contact: dawn@triangleconsulting.co.uk

Coming home with the Home Star

Posted on 16th June 202216th June 2022 by Donna

Outcomes Star for homelessness gets a radical overhaul

Over the 20 years since we first started working on an outcomes tool for homelessness, a huge amount has changed in the sector. In response, we’ve undertaken a major review of the Outcomes Star. The resulting Home Star is now published – and it’s a truly person-centred Star for homeless people.

The Outcomes Star, commonly known as the Homelessness Star, was Triangle’s first ever outcomes tool. At its heart from the beginning were the principles of empowerment and collaboration that have informed Triangle’s work ever since. And its structure, with the simple yet engaging Star shape underpinned by a five-stage Journey of Change, has become the basis of the whole constellation of Stars that followed it.

Appropriately enough for a tool with collaboration at its heart, it came about through an initial collaboration with St Mungo’s back in 2002. We worked with St Mungo’s to design an outcomes tool, then developed it in collaboration with the London Housing Foundation and other homelessness charities to publish the Homelessness Star in 2006. It has been a resounding success and is widely used within the sector.

But with close to 50 Stars now published and more than 60 research studies supporting the Star’s validity, we’ve learned a lot since that first Star. We’ve come to know what resonates with service users, how to ensure that the stages in the Journey of Change are absolutely clear, and how to make sure each Star is measuring the things that really matter. It was time to put that learning back into the Homelessness Star.

"This version is much better. It’s much more user friendly, much more accurate, the terms are much more identifiable for end users. I think it’s a massive improvement. You’ve really addressed it, it’s bang up to date, the language is particularly good. Especially changes in safety and crime, and ‘Trust and hope’, is far better than ‘motivation’. Our keyworkers feel it does address all the issues."

“A person experiencing homelessness feels like they have an insurmountable knot to untangle. The Home Star helps untangle the knot of issues. The issues can be itemised and separated out, allowing the person to concentrate on each area and go on to see and feel the changes in their lives as a result”.

Time for a rethink

We had updated the Homelessness Star in 2017, but increasingly felt that it needed a more radical overhaul. As a social enterprise, Triangle invests part of the licence fee for Stars in keeping them under review and up to date – and we wanted to make a big investment in our first Star. So in April 2020 we formally kicked the process off with a Round Table of users of the Homelessness Star (see the Reviewing the Star box below).

Three main things drove the rethink. First and foremost, the language needed changing. Our more recent Stars are even more trauma-informed as we have learnt how to word them to avoid triggers or any suggestion of blame – so we wanted to bring that learning into what would be the new Home Star. And while the original Homelessness Star was also person-centred, the thinking on that has moved on and there was more that could be done to eliminate jargon, focus on the service user’s real concerns and put them right at the centre.

Secondly, the sector itself has changed rapidly over recent years. When we first wrote the Homelessness Star, the main clients were single homeless men. Today far more women and families are accessing services, and people often have significantly more complex needs. And with increasing pressures on funding, many homelessness services are offering shorter-term interventions.

Thirdly, the external environment for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness has got tougher. There’s less social housing, the cost of living is sky high, and access to work has become even tougher. It was important to reflect all that more explicitly in the new edition of the Star.

“We’re really proud of the new Home Star,” says Triangle director Sara Burns. “It was our first flagship Star, and we wanted to make it as good and relevant and accessible as it could possibly be. So we’re delighted at the way it’s being received. We’ve had feedback that it’s ‘bang up to date’, with the language being particularly good. And perhaps most importantly, it’s person-centred to its very core.”

The new Home Star

At a glance: what’s changed in the Home Star

There’s trauma-informed language throughout – for example: “You don’t have the help you need or are not ready to engage with it. Perhaps it doesn’t work for you or it’s hard to trust it”.
The Star works for women and families and for people with complex needs.
There are explicit references to external factors that are beyond the control of the service and of the service user.
The former “Motivation and responsibility” area has become “Trust and hope” and is completely different.
The old “Offending” area has been reworked as “Safety and crime”, focusing much more on homeless people being victims of crime.
The “Alcohol and drugs” area now recognises that drinking or taking drugs can be a coping strategy.
The “Meaningful use of time” scale has become “How I spend my time” and focuses more on what is meaningful for the service user.
There are more accessible materials, including Flashcards for people with limited English or who struggle with forms.

Reviewing the Star: the process

Gathering feedback
– Continuous input over many years through our trainers and implementing leads
– Meeting with MEAM and others
– Workshop organised by Brighton Women’s Centre
– Round Table in April 2020
– Wide call for feedback

Testing successive drafts
– Drafts sent for feedback in April and Nov 2021
– Workshop with Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) in Dec 2021
– Final version Jan 2022
– Launch webinar Mar 2022
– New Star available April 2022

A major collaboration: organisations contributing to the review

How to start with the new Star

For new Star users, the process is simple – get in touch with Triangle (details below), get a licence and some training and you can start using the Home Star straightaway.

For organisations already using the Homelessness Star, switching is free for all licence holders, and there’s guidance on the Triangle website on how to do it with minimum disruption. There’s also support for licensed trainers. However it’s important to realise that the new Home Star is significantly different from the Star it replaces. The data won’t match (for example, the “Trust and hope” area is entirely different from the old “Motivation and responsibility”, so there needs to be a period of adjustment.

“There will be an interruption in the continuity of detailed data when switching over, and you will need to update your internal policy and other documentation mentioning the Star,” says Sara Burns. “But we’re confident that the effort of switching is well worth it.”

Next steps

Learn more about the Home Star here
Get the guidance on switching to the Home Star here.
Sign up for our newsletter here
Contact us for more information