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Question: I am a student taking my "Family Supports Certificate" through Distance Education and am on my last class and love this website and wanted to ask some advice. I am creating a program for the Military Family resource centre where I volunteer which will focus on "Empowering Parents" to "take back parenting", learn to not be afraid to say no to your child, and to set boundaries for your child and yourself in relation to the military lifestyle. I am hitting a wall when it comes to creating my goals and objectives. I always have a hard time simplyfying this stage. Any help or guidance with this

Answer: The key decisions about goals envolve from identifying what outcomes your project might accomplish that can be measured in some objective way. What are you trying to accomplish, and how will you know what is actually accomplished? Especially if the measurement time frame is short or there is little or no real opportunity to do follow-up, keep the goals practical and immediate. The general goal is to strengthen certain parenting skills, and probably the most useful outcomes are that participants can demonstrate those skills in some way by the end of the class. Take a look at the core competencies listed with this response and then at our table of contents. Part of your question indicates that you want to teach parent strategies useful within a military culture, which is why we included cultural competence on the list.

Question Date: Fri, 09/26/2008