The personal touch: why goal setting is so empowering for the people you care for
We’ve all experienced that innate sense of self-fulfilment that comes from ticking off an item on our to-do list, or removing that reminder post-it note from our desks.
Setting achievable goals can have a substantive impact on our happiness and sense of self-worth. And this is even more true for care home residents or service users within a care home environment.
Plus, if you’re a care home manager, you probably know first-hand that helping your service users set life goals (and witnessing them come to fruition) can be almost as fulfilling as setting them for yourself.
It doesn’t matter if these goals are short-term or long-term — all that matters is that they provide a sense of direction for your service user.
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Examples of service user goals could include:
- Making small changes to their every-day schedule that improve overall health and wellbeing - even if it’s something as simple as ensuring their teeth are brushed twice a day
- Improving their mobility
- Learning how to cook a meal for themselves
- Travelling around the UK or Europe - or just booking a holiday
While these goals are great, what would make them even more attainable, would be to reframe them with the SMART goals framework in mind. SMART goals are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound.
- How specifically will your service user’s goal improve their overall wellbeing?
- How will they measure success?
- What does the roadmap to achievement look like?
- Are these goals relevant to the current care needs, or health and wellbeing priorities of your service user.
- Are they time-bound? When will this goal be achieved?
With the SMART framework, we can take another look at the original goals and reframe them to make them easier for a service user to break down into smaller chunks, making the goal easier to achieve:
SMART goals are the foundation of truly person-centred care. And, as we’ll explore later in this resource, properly defined SMART goals make it easier for you to deliver person-centred care that aligns with current CQC regulatory requirements.
But SMART goals are only the first piece of the puzzle. You’ll also need to design a goal-setting strategy to ensure that these goals are met.
Making it happen: how to work with your service users to build their goal-setting strategy
To deliver outstanding person-centred care, you need to understand your service user’s individual goals and tailor your care provision to match. For this work, both you and your service user need to be aligned on what success looks like.
This means that it’s essential that you work together on a clear strategy for achieving a relevant goal.
Here are our four tips for creating effective goals:
Make the time
First thing’s first. You and your service user need to get over the biggest hurdle: making the time.
It’s important that you and your service user carve out time for this goal. It’s not just a question of what you’ll be achieving, it’s also about understanding when to make time for it.
It’s important for you to work collaboratively with your service users to identify pockets of time that can be reserved specifically for goal-setting discussions and activities. This could be a recurring daily, weekly or fortnightly slot, or even shorter, more frequent intervals. Remember, the key to person-centred care is to align time management to the service user’s needs!
Seek feedback
To ensure you’re both aligned, make sure that both you and your service user work together to create a feedback process.
Two distinct groups of stakeholders are going to need to be involved here: your managers and professional peers are one group; the other is the family, friends or loved ones of the person you’re caring for.
And of course you can’t create a feedback process without first asking this question: what does success look like for your service user?
You’ll need to ask yourself other questions. What feedback will you need from your fellow team members to ensure that you’re aligned on your service user’s goals? How can you and your service user create a genuine dialogue where you’re giving each other support and feedback?
Find ways to keep service users motivated
Some goals may feel easier to achieve than others. How can you work with service users to ensure they stay motivated every step of the way?
We strongly recommend setting up regular review times and 1-1s so you can track goals and set milestones.
For example, you could have a service user who would like to visit more museums in London. Have they made a shortlist of where they’d like to visit? Have they drawn up a realistic schedule of when and where they’ll be able to visit?
Stay organised to maintain focus
Did you know that according to a study by Dominican University of California, people who write down their goals are 42% more likely to achieve them?
Work with your service user to come up with a documented plan for achieving their goal. Work closely with service users to decide:
- How they’re going to achieve their goal
- What resources they’ll need to achieve
- What obstacles will stand in their way
- How they’ll document progress
These strategies are essential for helping your service user to set goals that make them feel personally fulfilled.
But personal fulfilment can’t be the only aim of an effective goal setting strategy (as important as that is).
Effective goal setting is vital for ensuring regulatory alignment too.
Staying compliant: why evidencing goals is important for the Care Quality Commission
In 2024, effective goal setting is essential if your care home is to stay compliant with the Care Quality Commission (CQC)’s new single assessment framework.
Log my Care’s resident care management expert Mark Topps has outlined a number of reasons why effective goal setting will be so important for care home providers who want to demonstrate compliance with the new framework.
A renewed focus on person-centred care
The recent framework emphasises the importance of person-centred care. It promotes choice, dignity, and involvement in decision making.
The roll out of person-centred care will see a huge focus on family and loved ones being involved.
With the consent of the individual, we know involving family members and support networks in decision making processes can contribute to a more holistic and effective approach to care.
With so many stakeholders and support networks to consider, it’s never been more important for you to work with service users to draw up effective goals that are achievable AND well-documented.
A new quality of life framework
The primary purpose of CQC’s new quality of life framework is to improve the commission’s ability to consistently identify and take appropriate regulatory action in services that fail or are failing to meet the needs, aspirations and skills development of people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. This framework looks at four sections:
- Is there a planned programme for each person that focuses on their quality of life?
- Are the planned programmes relevant to each person's needs?
- Is each person's support programme being delivered at the right level of intensity?
- Is there a balance of the programmes and support plans for each individual, with coherence across settings and over time?
By setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals, care homes demonstrate their commitment to providing care that seeks to improve quality of life and aims to achieve the best possible outcomes for each service user.
Ensuring staff development and training
While the CQC has neglected to include training in their framework and lacks regulation on care home workers’ training and development, it’s still important to ensure staff receive proper training and support.
Training enables frontline staff to develop a greater understanding of the impact of their day-to-day activities on the well-being of the people they work with.
This in turn makes it more likely that your staff will feel empowered to work with service users in the creation of effective goals.
Key benefits of goal setting for care provider business operations
Ensuring alignment with regulatory frameworks
By setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals, your care home can demonstrate its commitment to providing care that respects individual preferences and aims at achieving the best possible outcomes for each service user.
Effective goal setting not only meets these regulatory requirements but also serves as a tool for continuous improvement within care settings.
Care plans that are regularly updated with new goals based on the evolving needs of residents are a sign of a dynamic and responsive care environment, which regulatory bodies favour.
Link to inspection outcomes
Any goal setting strategy you set will need to be informed by the criteria set down by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
And so while you should, of course, put empathy and empowerment for your service users at the heart of any goal setting strategy, you need to be guided by compliance too!
CQC inspectors are going to look for evidence that care homes are effectively setting and monitoring goals as part of their broader evaluation of the service’s responsiveness and person-centred approach.
This means that your goal-setting strategy could, in some cases, actually influence the outcome of a CQC inspection. For instance, a lack of effective goal setting or even poor documentation could lead to a negative inspection outcome.
Inspectors may conclude that the care home is not fully responsive to the needs of its residents, potentially resulting in a lower overall rating and the need for follow-up inspections or interventions.
If this sounds intimidating, remember that the reverse is also true: documentation and effective goal-setting systems are the secrets to ensuring your care home is ultimately recognised for offering truly goal-driven, person-centred care!
Enhancing your care home’s reputation in the long-term.
Beyond compliance and inspections, effective goal setting can enhance the reputation of your care home amongst your service users, their families and your peers in the industry.
Facilities that are known for their robust, responsive, and person-centred care planning are more likely to attract new residents and be recommended by families and healthcare professionals.
Furthermore, care homes that excel in their inspection outcomes due to effective goal setting often find themselves at an advantage in competitive local markets.
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