At Justlife we know that our work with clients has a real impact, but often this is complex to measure, hard to report on and can even be difficult for workers and clients themselves to tangibly see and remember. In the past month Justlife has adopted the Outcomes Star, a highly endorsed sector standard to record, report on and visibly see changes and outcomes in a persons journey.
In January 2014 the entire Justlife staff completed the Outcomes Star training course, enabling us to roll out this tool and adopt an approach that is excellent at recording outcomes. The training was essential to support quality use of the Outcomes Star within keywork and the consistency and accuracy of the data collected; it was also a great team building exercise, and insight for non-frontline staff into this area.
Matt Lloyd, Lead Project Worker at Justlife Manchester said: "Everyday we are dealing with people with multiple complex issues from addiction and mental health issues to homelessness, poor living skills and offending, it si sometimes difficult to know where to begin in helping someone and clients often only see the immediate need right in front of them, whether it is food, drugs, shelter, benefits and so on. The Outcomes Star is an excellent tool for both workers and clients to work together in looking at all the issues someone faces and make an action plan to help them progress. I have also seen the Outcomes Star have a really positive impact as it provides a visual picture of changes or progress that a client makes... incredible what a picture can do. We are all looking forward to using the Outcomes Star tool.
We are hoping that implementing the Outcomes Star can bring a wide range of benefits including better, more outcomes-focused keywork, a more consistent approach within teams, better coordination between teams and with other agencies, and timely relevant outcomes information for management and external reporting.