URGENT: academic partner required
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Apologies for cross-posting.

Since June 2008, Homeless Link has run an Outcomes Programme for the 
homelessness sector. This Programme includes the widely used Outcomes Star 
tool and online Outcomes Star System. The Outcomes Star is a comprehensive 
tool for measuring the outcomes of work with homeless people. It focuses on 
ten core areas that have been found to be critical to supporting people in the 
move away from homelessness. It measures the attitude a client has towards 
the difficulties they are experiencing in each area and where they are on the 
journey towards addressing them. For this reason, it is said that it 
measures ‘soft outcomes.’ The Outcomes Star System is a free web tool that 
allows organisations to create and store Outcomes Star data online. Visit 
http://www.homelessoutcomes.org.uk for further information.

The Outcomes Star tool has a high level of practical validity; users state that 
it is useful in their work and that it demonstrates change in a meaningful way. 
It is widely used and has been developed through extensive testing across the 
sector. We are less certain about the validity of the tool in terms of data 
collection and therefore wish to undertake some research on this. Proving its 
validity in this regard is important in supporting the tool’s dissemination to 
organisations that wish to compare data. We are looking to investigate the 
consistency of its use between different projects and indeed different 
workers, and also seek to establish the predictive validity of data collected by 
the tool by investigating its correlation to hard outcomes.

Following a successful proposal to the Big Lottery, we now have funding 
available to validate, through research, the effectiveness of the Outcomes 
Star as a data collection tool. We are seeking an academic partner with 
experience in public policy evaluation to assist us with this research. You can 
view the specification for the work at 
http://www.homelessoutcomes.org.uk/resources/1/Academic%20partner%
20spec%20April09.pdf. Please note the timescales of the research and that 
the work would need to begin quickly in order to meet the final deadline of 16 
August 2009.

Please contact me if you wish to discuss this further.

Regards,
Joanne Crellen, Innovations Project Manager

T: 020 7960 3014 | M: 07798 631367 | F: 020 7960 3011
Homeless Link, First Floor, 10-13 Rushworth Street, London SE1 0RB
 
Homeless Link and Resource Information Services (RIS) are delighted to 
announce that they have merged with effect from 1 April 2009 under the 
name Homeless Link.  This move will enhance the capability of both 
organisations to create a knowledge centre and online community that will 
assist frontline homelessness agencies and statutory bodies to meet the goal 
of ending homelessness. 

 www.homeless.org.uk  I  www.ris.org.uk 
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