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The Recovery Star is a tool for supporting and measuring change when working with adults of working age who are accessing mental health support services. As an outcomes measurement tool it enables organisations to measure and summarise:
- the progress being made by service users
- the service being delivered through a project
The Recovery Star is also an effective keyworking tool. It is designed to support individuals in understanding where they are in terms of recovery and the progress they are making, providing both the client and worker a shared language for discussion mental health and wellbeing.
Core dimensions of the Recovery Star
The Recovery Star identifies and measures ten core areas of life:
Managing mental health
Self-care
Living skills
Social networks
Work
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Relationships
Addictive behaviour
Responsibilities
Identity and self-esteem
Trust and hope
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The Recovery Star helps to identify any difficulties people using services are experiencing in each of these areas and how far there are towards addressing them and moving on.
Developing the Recovery Star
In 2007 we commissioned Triangle Consulting to develop a version of the Outcomes Star for the mental health sector. The work was carried out in collaboration with five of our member organisations. The projects taking part in the pilot included a floating support service, a supported housing service, two day centres, two training and employment projects, a residential care home, a residential rehabilitation service and an independent hospital. The Recovery Star was piloted with 114 service users.
Running the pilot
Over a six-month period, managers, front-line workers and service users tested the Outcomes Star, identified ways in which it needed to be modified to meet the needs of service users with mental health issues, and piloted a draft version of the Recovery Star. In addition to this participative process, Triangle Consulting also drew on academic literature describing the process of recovery from mental illness based on service user accounts. Overall, the picture painted by the Star of the progress made by clients within a project was found to reflect worker and manager expectations.
This bottom-up process of development for both the original Outcomes Star and the Recovery Star has ensured that the tools are rooted in a real understanding of the nature of recovery and change and are meaningful to both service users and workers as well as providing robust outcomes data which reflects the true aims of services.
Management information tools
Currently we are exploring how to develop management information tools for the Recovery Star which will support service benchmarking. This will provide a feedback mechanism for the structuring of care planning and services provision within organisations that are using the Recovery Star to measure outcomes.
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