Step 4: Assess Your Program’s Current Mental Health Services to Set Goals

Working from the vision statement, your second strategic planning meeting should focus on setting goals and objectives for your mental health approach. Your overarching vision is likely to be very broad. As you develop your strategic plan, you will want to select a few more targeted goals, and then develop a set of specific objectives for each goal. Remember, goals tell you what you want to achieve, but not how you are going to get there.

Objectives are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-limited (SMART). Objectives are statements of things that your program can do or achieve in a relatively short time frame (you may want to define some objectives for the current program year, and some for upcoming years). When you accomplish your objectives, you will know you have had success in doing the activities outlined in your strategic plan.

Your mental health consultant will be critical to helping your program achieve its goals. So will how you structure that role and the consultant’s relationships with staff. Make sure your program goals include goals related to supporting child, family, and staff mental health. You might try developing a goal for each one of these — child, family, and staff. It’s OK to develop a big list of goals; in fact, that kind of brainstorming can be important for getting everyone on board and excited about the planning process. Ultimately, though, you’ll want to focus your strategic plan on a manageable number of SMART goals, each supported by a set of actionable objectives.

One way to begin is to ask your team (and perhaps other staff members as well) to complete the ECMHC Program Needs Assessment Surveys. This online survey asks a series of questions about your program’s current approach to mental health and the services the consultant provides. Everyone who completes the survey can print a results report that includes how their ratings of your program’s mental health services and consultation compare to recommended best practices. The report also includes resources for learning how to strengthen components of the program that might need improvement. While everyone’s perspective may be different, having each member of the team completes the needs assessment will give the team ideas for prioritizing specific program areas for goal setting in your strategic plan. Use the survey results for ongoing discussions and quality improvements.

Once your planning team has completed the ECMHC Program Needs Assessment Survey, you can use the results to generate a list of areas where you need to strengthen your program and to write goals and objectives for what you would like your mental health services and approach to accomplish.

You’ll likely have far more of these goals and objectives than you can accomplish within a year. Therefore, the next step in developing the strategic plan is to prioritize your goals and identify specific strategies for what you plan to accomplish, and when.

Last Updated: August 20, 2025