Did you include some professional development or training in your strategies to meet your work goal? Or perhaps you just needed some support or supervision from a more experienced team member to scaffold your professional learning. Some goals will be achieved relatively quickly while other goals will require more time and effort. Your willingness to accept support and supervision is a reflection of your professional approach to working in children’s services as it shows your desire for self-improvement. Why write goals? Consider the following dialogue between Jan, an experienced childcare worker and Van who is new to the children’s services profession. It’s the end of the day—the children have all been collected and the staff have tidied up. Jan: Hello Van. How did your first day at work go? Van: I enjoyed it! Jan: That’s good. I’m just putting together my action plan. How familiar are you with action plans? Van: We did cover action plans when I was going my Certificate. But it was not in great detail. Jan: Well, each of us usually does one once a year at around this time. Van: How are they used? Jan: To help us get approval for staff development. You see, once a year, management meets and decides on how what they will spend their funds on. Some of it they will allocate to staff development. Seminars, workshops, training courses and so on. We put in our requests for what we want to participate in. There’s usually never enough money for all of us to do everything we want to do. However, it really helps if you’ve done an action plan and submit this with your request. If the goals on your action plan are the same as the goals of the staff development you’re applying for, the chances that your request will be approved will be better. Van: I see. Jan: An action plan also helps us evaluate our own performance and development at work. These are sometimes referred to as staff appraisals. This process validates the request for additional support to improve performance for staff, supervisors and management. Van: I suppose the plans also provide supervisors with a tool to discuss, evaluate and provide feedback to staff members about their performance of job responsibilities and performance. Jan: Absolutely.
Did you include some professional development or training in your strategies to meet your work goal? Or perhaps you just needed some support or supervision from a more experienced team member to scaffold your professional learning. Some goals will be achieved relatively quickly while other goals will require more time and effort. Your willingness to accept support and supervision is a reflection of your professional approach to working in children’s services as it shows your desire for self-improvement. Why write goals? Consider the following dialogue between Jan, an experienced childcare worker and Van who is new to the children’s services profession. It’s the end of the day—the children have all been collected and the staff have tidied up. Jan: Hello Van. How did your first day at work go? Van: I enjoyed it! Jan: That’s good. I’m just putting together my action plan. How familiar are you with action plans? Van: We did cover action plans when I was going my Certificate. But it was not in great detail. Jan: Well, each of us usually does one once a year at around this time. Van: How are they used? Jan: To help us get approval for staff development. You see, once a year, management meets and decides on how what they will spend their funds on. Some of it they will allocate to staff development. Seminars, workshops, training courses and so on. We put in our requests for what we want to participate in. There’s usually never enough money for all of us to do everything we want to do. However, it really helps if you’ve done an action plan and submit this with your request. If the goals on your action plan are the same as the goals of the staff development you’re applying for, the chances that your request will be approved will be better. Van: I see. Jan: An action plan also helps us evaluate our own performance and development at work. These are sometimes referred to as staff appraisals. This process validates the request for additional support to improve performance for staff, supervisors and management. Van: I suppose the plans also provide supervisors with a tool to discuss, evaluate and provide feedback to staff members about their performance of job responsibilities and performance. Jan: Absolutely.
9282_readings.docx