There is a familiar template most allied health degrees teach for goal writing — SMART, COAST, GAS, depending on the era. They are all useful and all become slightly absurd when you read them out to a parent. The clinicians we admire have figured out how to write a goal that satisfies the framework AND lands when a parent reads it on the kitchen bench.
Write the kitchen-bench version first
Imagine the parent reading the goal on Saturday morning, with no clinician there to translate. Can they say what success would look like? If not, the goal is a draft. Get to a sentence the parent could read out loud to a friend and have it make sense.
Then layer in the framework
Take the kitchen-bench goal and add the measurable bit and the timeframe. The framework is for you and your supervisor; the language stays plain. "Sam will eat at the family table for one full meal a day, four days a week, by end of Term 2" is both kitchen-bench and SMART.
Two short over one long
If a goal needs three commas and a semicolon, it is two goals. Split them. Three short, achievable goals beat one ambitious one because progress is visible. The family reports back faster, you adjust the plan faster.
Review the goal before you review progress
Every quarter, before you ask 'how are we going against the goal', ask 'is this still the right goal'. Life moves; the goal should move with it. A goal that has been static for six months is either a great long-term aim or, more often, a goal that has lost relevance.
How Carelyt models goals
Goals live on the client record (not on individual session notes), so a goal change is one edit and every subsequent session inherits it. When a colleague covers a session, they see the live goals at the top of the client view — no archaeology.