Goals and Objectives

What are goals and objectives? A goal is a statement of desired qualities in human and social conditions. They can be in either general or abstract terms. Goals and objectives vary greatly with different organizations. When determining goals and objectives, organizations want to keep in mind that they want to be defining the purpose of the program or policy they are referring to. When determining goals and objectives an organization wants to follow four different steps; locating an enabling legislation, locating a legislative history, locating staff and committee studies and reports, and checking other “official” sources.
When a social program is funded by the government treasury then it is considered public to some extent. Organizations must ensure they have authorization for expenditures. This is usually handled under different government departments. This is why programs use enabling legislation. Enabling legislation are acts that contain some statement about the purpose or goal of the act and for the program.
Legislative history is when a set of official documents or transcripts of legislative hearings and documents accepted as part of the background material studied by members of the legislative committee that considered the matter at hand and framed the legislation that subsequently was passed into law. This basically means that a program looks at previous legislative laws that could possibly help with the goal and objectives of their organization. In order to access these histories you can look in any law school library, statehouse library, or university library in the public documents department.
Staff studies are used to study issues that may result in new programs or policies and amendments to existing legislation. These staff studies are usually considered to be authoritative sources, especially when it comes to the goals and purposes of the social policy or program.
The final step is to check other official sources. You want to be sure that you...