Swindon Supported Housing is local authority run service for 120 families and vulnerable single people. They have now been using the Star for all clients for 4 years having come across the early St Mungo’s version in 2004.
Wendy Usher the scheme coordinator describes how it has transformed their approach to key-work
When Supporting People came in it was a bit of a wake up call for us
Now we knew our work would be compared with others we felt a pressure to look at how well we were doing and find ways to show that our work was making a difference.
We looked around at what support tools were available and found three. We decided to let the service users choose the tool that worked best for them.
We consulted twelve clients and every single one chose the Star.
Listening to initial staff concerns about the Star is important
Although the service users liked the tool there was resistance from some staff at first.
But that disappeared once we trained everyone.
We used the training manual that is published along with the Star and it worked a treat.
What made the biggest difference to staff was being allowed to express their concerns and having them addressed which the training allowed us to do really well.
Now the staff are fully on board.
They love the Star and the service users love it too.
No one has taken the time to really find out all about them before. They can see the changes they have made in the time they have been with us and that gives them a real boost. They are so proud of what they have achieved they put the Star on their fridge where everyone can see it.
More systematic and higher quality keywork
Before we introduced the Star the support we had in place wasn’t that fantastic and the documentation wasn’t fantastic either.
Now everything we do, how we do it and why we do it is geared around the Star – the Star is support work. It’s made the support we give much more systematic and that means the quality is better.
It also brings a consistency which is important to us because we work on a number of different sites.
The best thing is that it hands the process back to service users.
We ask them what it is they want to work on first and it puts them in the driving seat.
The net result is workers talk less and service users talk more.
Star data can help make the case for smaller caseloads
We don’t currently analyse the data to build a picture of what we are achieving across the service because we don’t have the IT to do this.
But as soon as the Outcomes Star System is available we plan to do this.
Then we will be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the service and will use this information to make the case for funding to address the weaknesses.
We want to use it to compare the outcomes for workers with different case loads.
We know that when workers have too high a case load they can’t give service users the level of support they need to really move on.
We are hoping that when we analyse our outcomes data it will give us the evidence to support this.
Just using the Star has already increased the awareness of the managers above me of what is involved in supporting vulnerable people.
The data should increase this again.
We are also looking forward to having specialist Stars
We need versions that are tailored to the needs of young mothers, women fleeing domestic violence and people with addiction issues.
That will help us identify and respond to the specific support issues that they need. We think the Star is fantastic; we can’t be too positive about it.