ABSTRACT
Goals have been defined as the targets a client hopes to achieve through participation in a therapeutic intervention. They can be categorised as long-term aims, intermediate goals, or short-term outcomes. The best way to understand the link between needs, goals, and outcomes, and to see how a good outcome is operationalised, is to provide some samples, and then to practise thinking through some real-life examples. In order for learning and change to occur, continual evaluation and feedback must be given in a way that is closely tailored to an individual's needs, their meaningful goals, and desired outcomes. There are many off-the-shelf ready-made evaluation instruments available; some are free, some require a subscription to the authors or institution which created and validated them. Specific standardised and non-standardised measurement tools can be of great help, but only if they are measuring what the specific needs, goals, and outcomes are.
