Handout 5:
Worksheet for Achieving Family Goals

Overview
This worksheet and a "six-step approach for achieving family goals, "presented in handout 3, can provide guidance on individualizing an approach to help families achieve their goals.

1. Reviewing Goal Statements and Incorporating Pre-Existing Plans

   With the family, list the desired goals it articulated.

   Goal 1:
   Goal 2:
   Goal 3:

   Next, review all pre-existing plans involving the family. Use the following questions as a guide:

   • What pre-existing plans, Head Start or community-based, is the family currently working on?
     
   • If there are pre-existing plans, how can I build on or incorporate them?
     
   • How do the pre-existing plans affect the family's goals?
     
   • How can I avoid duplication or conflicts with any pre-existing family plans?
     
     
2. Recognizing Skills, Resources, and Supports

   With the family, identify resources and supports that are available to help the family achieve its goals. Consider forming a larger team. Use these questions as a guide:

   • What internal supports can the family draw on to help the family attain its goal?
     
   • What Head Start resources can help the family attain its goal?
     
   • What community resources can help the family attain its goal?
     
   • How can we build on or incorporate these resources or supports?
     
   • Should any community members, informal helpers, or key players (such as extended family, neighbors, and friends) join the effort?
     
     
3. Developing Strategies

   With the family and other invited team members, develop concrete strategies for accomplishing the family's goals. If a strategy is large and complex, break it down into doable activities. Use the following questions to assist you:

   • How can the goals be accomplished?
     
   • What strategies should we use?
     
   • Are any of our strategies too complex?
     
   • How can we make a complex strategy easier to achieve?
     
   • What activities would pave the way?
     
     
4. Assigning Responsibility
   Jointly decide who will accomplish each strategy. The assignments should be based on the skills of the team (family members, staff, and community partners). Use the following questions to assist you:
   
   • What skills or resources are needed to carry out this strategy?
     
   • Who on our team has these skills or resources?
     
   • Are we missing any skills or resources? How can these skills be developed? Resources accessed?
   
   
5. Creating a Timetable
    As a team, identify the completion date(s) for each strategy. Use the following questions as a guide:
   
   • Which strategy needs to be accomplished first?
     
   • Can the team carry out more than one strategy at the same time?
     
   • Are team members working on more than one strategy?
     
   • What other events might have an impact on this time frame?
     
     
6. Following Up and Reviewing the Progress
   As a team, revisit and review the goal-setting process and outcomes. Use the following questions as a guide:
   
   • What have we accomplished? How do we know this?
     
   • Do our goal statements, strategies, or timetables need to be revised? How?
     
   • Are the services appropriate? Are they meeting the needs? The expectations?
     
   • What additional supports or resources are needed?
     
     
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