First - getting to grips with the Outcomes Star

Getting to grips with the Outcomes Star System

As a manager using the Outcomes Star System you have a number of responsibilities and options.

Your responsibilities

• Read and adopt the best practice guidance in the conditions for use.
• Make sure the profile page for your service area/department or project is accurate. If you manage a number of teams, you will need to set up each of these as projects these should sit within a service area/department.
  
• Set up user accounts on the system for those staff who need to add Star Charts or get reports.
  
• If you wish, you can delegate much of this work to an administrator or colleague. Set up this person with a user account and give them manager permissions. You could then also ask them to enter Star Charts that have already been completed on paper and to draw off reports when you need them. Be aware that this member of staff will have access to sensitive information such as reports on keyworkers' caseloads and individual service users' Star Charts and profiles.
  

Further options for managers

Managers can get a number of useful reports on their team or, if they manage a number of teams, their service area or department.

Using the Outcomes Star System in supervision with key workers

Using the Outcomes Star system's Key Worker Summary Report you can review an individual key worker's caseload for a period of your choosing. This will show you the average starting scores for the key workers' clients, their clients' current scores and the average percentage that have made positive and negative change, or no change at all during this period.

This report is aimed at helping you as a manager identify overload, staff support or training needs and to observe strengths so that you can allocate new service users to the most appropriate person.

It is not intended to be used in isolation to manage performance. In fact, were it to be used this way it may distort the data as key workers may be less inclined to enter negative change.

Review Star data for your project or service area/department

You can also get similar reports on the project or service area/department that you manage. Enabling you to:

• See the average starting need, current need and change for your whole project/service area
  
• Benchmark your project/service area against others in the same organisation.

All these reports can be filtered to show only certain types of projects or clients in order to get at more meaningful results.

Average increase and decrease in scores

The first table of each report compares the last Chart recorded during the period you have chosen to review using the filter on the right with the very first Star Chart added for each service user included. This first Chart may not have been completed during the chosen period.

It is useful for seeing the relationship between the service users position when they joined the service and comparing it with the most recent Chart added to the system.

Percentage of positive and negative changes

The data in this table is all taken from the chosen period that you have specified using the filter options on the right hand side. It compares the first and last Charts for a service user during this period and therefore shows change during a specific period.

This is useful for interpreting how a new approach, additional staff or new services may have affected service users' outcomes.

And finally

You can also:

• Edit your profile page - change your details, including your password
  
• Add service users and edit their details
• Add Star Charts for any of your teams' clients.
  

Please give us feedback on this information

Use the rating options below to indicate how effective this is. And if you have suggestions for improvements please use the feedback tab on the far right of the screen or vote on popular suuggestions for changes using the list on the top right of each page in this section.