This section of the website provides brief information on how to take an outcomes approach. For more detailed help, download
Managing Outcomes: A Guide for Homelessness Organisations.
Taking an outcomes approach to service delivery means more than simply adding another piece of paperwork to your systems. The outcomes approach is a continuous cycle of enquiry and service improvement based on factual information about what is being achieved.
The Outcomes Learning Cycle
To fully adopt this approach, your organisation must:
- Clarify outcomes - what are we trying to achieve? Agree on the intended outcomes of an activity, service, or programme. (See below for more information on how to clarify outcomes.)
- Measure outcomes – what are we actually achieving? Record the outcomes that you achieve in a systematic way to enable the information to be collated.
- Analyse and draw learning - what can we learn from the outcomes achieved? Collate the information and draw learning about what is and what is not working.
- Make changes – what changes should we make as a result of this learning? Plan and implement changes to service delivery.
Outcomes information can be shared with funders to demonstrate the achievements of a service, but its primary purpose is to enable learning and service improvement.
Outcomes as an integral part of how you work
Taking an outcomes approach complements and can easily be embedded into ways of working that are common in the homelessness sector.
View this paper on how its ethos links to other approaches such as the Places of Change Programme, key working, motivational interviewing and cognitive-behavioural therapy.