Ethcs and Policy

84 CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY AND PLANNING

Seeking Participation in Goal Setting Is it necessary that everyone agree on the same goals of a specific program or policy? What are the implications if they don't? At the most basic level, the implications are that different individuals (stakeholders) perceive that they are each working toward some specific end point. They may believe, correctly or incorrectly, that they are working toward the same desired end. The problem is: if they have not articulated or discussed their own goals and values with each other, they may find out after considerable expen- diture of energy and resources that they are working toward very different ends. Cer- tainly no effective program or policy can be constructed if those responsible for designing the program or policy hold widely disparate or conflicting goals. Participants need some basic agreement about what it is they are trying to achieve, and why. Not every single stakeholder needs to agree on the final goals, but those responsible for implementing the program or policy must be held accountable for articulating what it is they are doing and why.

Once again, we stress the virtues of participation in program planning. Having the rel- evant stakeholders involved in setting program goals is crucial to gaining the support and cooperation necessary to make the intervention work. An important step, if it has not already been accomplished (see Chapter 1), is to identify relevant participants for inclu- sion in the goal-setting and objective-setting phase.

The change agent (e.g., the person responsible for coordinating the program planning effort) should involve ~arious participants in the planning process, not just agency admin- istrators. Participants might include program staff, potential clients, citizens in the sur- rounding community, representatives from justice and social service agencies, schools, and so on. This requires patience and negotiating skills, as there are likely to be different assumptions and opinions regarding the problem, its causes, and the type of intervention needed.

Targets and clients are often overlooked at this stage, as are front-line workers: what should they expect to see result from this planned change? A major question to ask at this point is whether goal-setting should proceed from a "top-down" or "bottom-up" approach.

Typically, change follows a top-down format. This is often the case because the change agent is likely to be working for, or contracted by, the agency that is funding the intervention, and the change agent owes some obligation to weight their definitions of goals more heavily. There may be advantages to this situation, as well as costs. It may be the case that those in the higher levels of the organization have the most experience with interventions of this type, and they might indeed be in the best position to state realistic, feasible outcomes to be expected. They might also be best equipped to formu- late goals that can garner widespread political support for the program (e.g., support from other stakeholders). However, there is a very real danger in ignoring the views of program staff and clients. The danger is that the goals handed down from above may be unrealistic to program staff, or irrelevant to the clients. In either case, the impact

Chapter 2 • Setting Goals and Objectives 85

of the intervention could be severely compromised. The goals might prove unrealistic, in which case the program would be held accountable for unreachable goals; or clients and program staff might refuse to cooperate with a new policy or provide information to program evaluators.

• • Goal Setting: Top-Down versus Bottom-Up Approaches • Top-Down

The change agent begins by getting goal definitions from top officials at the administrative level of his or her organization (e.g., the Chief of County Probation, the Chief of Police, the Director of Social Services, etc.), and then gets responses from lower levels of the organization: perhaps from agency supervisors, then program staff, and eventually from potential clients. Thus, those at the top of the organizational hierarchy have more "say" in defining the program's goals, because their definition is the first one, and it carries more weight and more power as subor- dinates and clients are asked to respond to it.

Bottom-Up

The change agent begins by seeking goal definitions at the client or staff level. In contrast to the top-down approach, here the change agent first gets definitions from clients and staff about what the program goals are or should be, and then gets responses to these goal definitions from successively higher levels of the agency responsible for implementing the intervention, as well as the agency that is funding the intervention. Other stakeholders to approach may include agency supervisors, administrators, and government representatives. The views of clients and program staff are given more priority using this format; their definitions guide subsequent responses. Obviously, this approach is favored when it is widely viewed that so-called "experts" are out of touch, and that front-line program staff and/or clients are in a better position to state the needs and goals of the target population. Many "grassroots" organizations follow this format.

Regardless of which approach is used to formulate initial goals, therefore, it is crucial that all stakeholders eventually have some input into defining program goals. These issues are examined in more detail in Case Study 2-1 at the end of this chapter.

Specifying an Impact Model We discussed causes and theories in Chapter 1. Examination of theories helps us to formulate what is called an impact model: a prediction that a particular intervention will bring about a specific change in the problem. Formulating such a model forces us to answer several important questions: What is the intervention? Why would a proposed intervention work? Which causes of the problem will it address? In other words, through what process will change occur, and why? What outcome (a change in the problem) is expected? Thus, the impact model is made up of three key elements