The Use of Empowerment StarTM, MyStarTM and Change StarTM at Women's Refuge New Zealand

The National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges (NCIWR) is a network of
40 self-governed Refuges who respond to crisis calls, provide secure accommodation
within safe houses and offer longer term support. Together they form an integral part
of the solution to New Zealand’s family violence problem and directly support nearly
27,000 women and children in 2019/20.

NCIWR’s focus is on continually finding and further developing effective ways to protect and support women and children affected by abuse within intimate partner and family relationships and on preventing this abuse from re-occurring or escalating.

Over the last three years, NCIWR successfully integrated three versions of the OutcomesStarTM (EmpowermentStarTM, HomelessnessStarTM and MyStarTM) into our everyday frontline work at our local Refuges, with the ChangeStarTM as a fourth addition to be shortly rolled out to selected locations also.

The OutcomesStarsTM play a crucial role in supporting NCIWR’s aim to empower and advocate for our clients to help liberating them from family violence, as well as support our preventative work in breaking patterns of escalating, re-occurring and intergenerational family violence within New Zealand. Therefore, in my presentation, I would like to outline and share how the combined use of the EmpowermentStarTM (measuring outcomes for women affected by family violence on their journey towards independence, safety and choice), MyStarTM (measuring outcomes for children aged between 5-12 years old, affected by family violence on their journey towards resilience and overall safety), as well as the ChangeStarTM (measuring outcomes for perpetrators of family violence on their journey towards changing their behaviours and stop using violence) have changed and shaped the way Women’s Refuge New Zealand operates in our frontline advocacy with women and children affected by family violence, and how the utilised OutcomesStarsTM have influenced our preventative work with perpetrators, willing to change their behaviour of using violence.


3 Key Learnings:

1. How can it look like to work simultaneously within one organisation with three major client groups (women and children affected by family violence + perpetrators of violence) and what are the key benefits.

2. How visual outcome-based tools like the OutcomeStarsTM can enhance engagement with these three client groups and help resulting in better outcomes for the clients.

3. How working with the whole family, utilising specific outcome tools for each member (women, children, perpetrators of violence) can create a shift in the working dynamic of preventing re-occurring, intergenerational patterns of family violence.