Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

How To Set Goals For Your Youth Work

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How to set goals for your youth work

It’s coming up to the end of the calendar year, so you may be planning on setting goals for the coming year and beyond.

This week’s Best Of Youth Workin’ It is therefore all about goal setting to help make sure you have all the tools you need to set appropriate goals for your youth work programs.

1. Create SMART targets – You may have heard of the SMART acronym before as it details how to set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound targets. This post gives examples of what this might look like in your youth programs.

2. Create SMARTER targets – Don’t just work SMART, work SMARTER by also Evaluating and Reassessing – check out this post to learn how this can be applied to your youth work.

3. Strategic youth work planning – part 1 – This was the first of three posts all about how to create a basic strategic youth work plan. It looks at long range planning and how you can put in place steps to achieve your vision.

4. Strategic youth work planning – part 2 – This second post has 6 areas to look at when making a strategic plan and has a free plan template for you to download and use.

5. Strategic youth work planning – part 3 – The third and final post has 3 areas to focus on, as well as the second part of the free plan template to download and use.

6. What outcomes are you expecting? – One problem that many people encounter when setting goals is that they don’t monitor and evaluate them properly. Make sure you read this post if you want to avoid that problem.

Question: What tips do you have for other youth workers who need to set goals for their programs? Let us know in the comments below.

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Not Just SMART But SMARTER Targets And Goals

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SMARTER targets in youth workIn a previous post we talked about how to create SMART targets for your youth work.  Well, why just work SMART if you can work SMARTER?

We start with the same SMART acronym:

S – Specific

M – Measureable

A – Achievable

R – Realistic

T – Timebound

but now we add the ER to make SMARTER targets:

E is for Evaluate

Come back and evaluate the success or areas for improvement within your goal and target setting. For example:

  • I want to increase attendance at my youth group by 20% by May 15 next year. You can evaluate both during and at the end of your SMARTER target’s timeline. Therefore, in December of the previous year you might evaluate how close you are to achieving that goal. Maybe you increased by 18% – decide what worked well and what didn’t and how you might achieve the other 2% growth by May. Or maybe you increased your attendance by 50% and it’s time to set a new goal for May. Monitoring and Evaluation is a fluid process and should be happening regularly in your youth work.

R is for Reassess or Re-evaluate (it can also mean Record)

Once you reach the time allotted for achieving your goal (remember T in SMART is for time-bound), take the time to reassess the goals for your program, your youth work and any personal goals you may have had as a practitioner.

Even if you didn’t reach your goals, take the time to re-evaluate what went well and what could be improved (use the SMART acronym to help you identify areas for improvement: was it Specific, Measurable, etc.) and how you might achieve the goal the next time around.

You might also find that this is the time (as well as throughout the process) to record your youth work in a report form, case studies or other measuring tool to identify which goals you reached, which you did not and why. This helps create evidence-based programs which will give support to funding applications and requests to continue with programs within your organization.

  • Reassess all of your goals at the end of the time you have given yourself to achieve each one. Record the outcomes in a report or spreadsheet. Did you grow your youth group by 20% by May of the following year? What are some case studies of the change that was affected by your program in the lives of your young people during that time?

Creating SMARTER targets will help you work within a framework for creating, managing, evaluating and recording goals for your youth group or youth program.

If you would like further support in creating SMARTER targets or helping you with the monitoring and evaluation of your project, please check out our consultancy services or contact us to schedule a free 30-minute virtual consultation.

Question: How have you used SMARTER targets for your youth work? Has it helped? Let us know in the comments below.

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  2. Following us on Twitter
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  4. Signing up to our RSS feed