Goal Setting
Staff play an important role in coaching and supporting individuals and their families as they plan their next steps on their education or career pathway. Relationship building and goal setting are a piece of that process and a way to engage with families meaningfully.
The Department uses a tool, Stepping Stones to Success to support the goal setting process with clients. Stepping Stones to Success is a research-based framework developed by Mathematica Policy Research that helps individuals identify their own motivations and goals. This tool encourages staff to engage in meaningful conversations to support client-driven goal planning.
FEWs and SSSs will complete goal setting activities using Stepping Stones to Success with families that are working with them. This tool is intended to give each client an opportunity to share with their FEW or SSS where they are in different areas of life as it relates to their economic and family well-being. DTA will discuss with the client what referrals and resources their family may benefit from and support the client in developing a plan to reach their goals.
Sharing the Stepping Stones to Success Tool
Stepping Stones can be shared with client’s multiple ways and was developed to be a visual tool when possible. Staff may share the Stepping Stones document through email, and discuss in a follow-up conversation, go through it together on a virtual meeting, or may walk through it during a phone call.
Staff must present it as a way to get to know a family’s needs and to prompt open-ended questions to help a parent identify their motivations, short term and long term goals, and potential supports needed.
It can be completed as fillable PDF if the client wants to return to DTA as part of their follow-up, they are not required to. If returned through email it may be attached to the narrative detailing the Stepping Stones conversation. It is currently available in English and Spanish on Policy Online. It is intended to be used a conversation starter and to promote discussion around different life areas that may influence a client’s economic or career pathway.
Recording Client Goals in BEACON
A client’s goals must be recorded as one of the Pathways to Work Planning activities and whenever there is an update to their individual or family goals. FEWs and SSSs will record the goal setting session date on the Planning Activities page in the Pathways to Work workflow. They will also record the client’s goals and challenges in the Goals comment editor. The Goals box is for staff to write notes in the participant’s voice around their own goals or challenges they are facing. The comment box includes sections for each life area; Personal and Family Supports, Education and Training and Job and Career to record. These notes will print on a client’s Pathways to Work Plan when an activity begins and the Plan is generated.
FEWs and SSSs will revisit the Stepping Stones tool with the client while they make progress on their education or career pathway, in discussing how to mitigate challenges to engagement or work or when there is a change to a client’s Pathways to Work Plan. FEWs must create Engagement Actions that support expected follow-up and goal completion dates to support progress.
Related Topics
Stepping Stones to Success – Tip Sheet
Last Update: August 9, 2023