1. Goal Setting

When designing a youth prevention program, first define your program’s goals: specifically, what do you hope to accomplish? Will you help younger people who are trying to quit? Will you concentrate on changing local legislation? Will you attempt to change local youth’s beliefs about normal youth tobacco use behaviors? Next, define your audience (age, sex, culture, socioeconomic status, literacy levels, language levels, etc) and collect their demographics. Make sure that you define an audience thatissuitable for your community (defining a prevention program for Hispanic youths may not work in a non-Hispanic population, for example). You must initially determine their attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs in order to measure changes that occur as the result of your program. Use and adapt professionally developed tools that assess these aspects; they are rigorously tested and will provide you with valid results. Subsequently, set a time line for your program. How long will you run your intervention,and what do you hope to have accomplished at certain time intervals? Set goals for the short term, the medium term, and the long term so that you may constantly monitor your program’s success. Involve the community in setting these goals. This shouldnotbe too hard: everyone, to some extent, has concerns about today’s youth. Incorporating the community into your program provides a better network of support and encouragement for those enrolled, and also generates more interest in the intervention’s success. In addition, members of the local community can provide invaluable information regarding community resources, local politics, and insights into culture and social values. Finally, when defining your goals, include information as to how you willevaluate the success of the intervention. This may include youth surveys on habits and perceptions of norms, monitoring tobacco sales among minors, and obtaining individual feedback from those who have finished the program.

Skill areas:
A Ability togenerate baseline data on knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and beliefs that are specific to targeted demographic and risk groups within a community

B Ability to secure strong community involvement in setting program goals and objectives

C Ability todevelop objectives that are meaningful to, and achievable by, target groups

D Ability to develop appropriate timeframes for program goals and objectives

E Ability to generate, identify, or adapt indicators that can be used in measuring progress toward goal achievement

F Ability to develop goals that are specific to targeted demographic and risk groups within a community