Life Skills Education Toolkit

22 • PART TWO: FACILITATOR’S GUIDE

SETTING OBJECTIVES AND INDICATORS

The planning process provides information on

problems, the needs of the children and the life

skills required to address these problems and

needs. The next step in the planning process is to

set objectives to guide program implementation.

Objectives define what we want to do in the

program. These keep the program on track and

answer the question, “What do we want to achieve

by doing this program/activity?” If we know what

we want, we can plan how to do it and find out

whether we have completed what we set out to do.

Objectives that are SMART (Specific, Measurable,

Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) are very

useful to plan, implement and evaluate a Life Skills

Education Program.

Objectives SMART Objectives

Children in a Life Skills Education Program At the end of the first year ...

will:

• Increase knowledge of HIV transmission. • Forty percent of children in the project have
  completed 12 life skills sessions.


• Increase assertiveness and learn • Sixty percent of children who attended the life
  how to resist peer pressure. skills sessions can report two instances where
  they used assertiveness skills with peers.


• Learn to make safe decisions. • Eighty percent of children can give at least two
  examples where they identify low, medium and
  high risk situations and can make safe decisions.


• Participate in the community. • At least two examples of children-initiated
  activities are taking place in the community.


• Learn life skills from trained facilitators. • All facilitators have completed a five-day
  in-service training on life skills during the first
  three months of the Life Skills Education Program.

Every life skills module provides suggested

objectives, which can be a useful starting point for

facilitators to plan and set their own objectives for

a Life Skills Education Program. It is a good idea

to add measurable or quantitative aspects to the

objectives provided for each session. For example,

instead of “Will learn assertiveness skills,” the

objective could be SMART: “By the end of the Life

Skills Education Program, at least 50 percent of

the street children attending the program will

learn the assertiveness skills of ‘saying no’ and will

use ‘I feel’ statements.”

By setting SMART objectives, it is easier to monitor

and evaluate our work. To find out whether we have

achieved our objectives, we need to set indicators.

If indicators are set during the planning phase,

facilitators can “check” on them during