Collaborative Goal Setting (CoGS)
A process to help children and young people who can be challenging to manage and help and where there may be several agencies or helpers involved. The CoGS process was developed by Steve Killick and first implemented in 1999 at Headlands School, Penarth, an Action for Children School and has been used in foster care and NHS settings. CoGS is based on principles of Solution Focussed and Cognitive-Behavioural Treatment.
When a young person is demonstrating risky or challenging behaviour it can be hard to know what to do. The more people involved the harder it gets. The young person and their family may get contradictory ideas from different people, or perhaps agencies will step back thinking somebody else will do it. The result? Often its multi-agency muddle.
CoGS was devised as process to try and get everybody working together, involved and thinking and acting positively, and using some tried tested ideas used in education and psychological therapies. It involves following the four steps of the process illustrated and explained below with a commitment to a philosophy that is about being clear about where you want to get to, to working with others including the young person and their family to get there, to focussing on the positive and being flexible if what you are doing isn’t working.
The Steps of CoGS
- Set Goals Collaboratively & Positively
Often, when there are different people involved, everybody has a different idea about what is wrong and therefore what needs to be done. Meetings will often focus on what people think the problem is and there is no time left to discuss solutions. IN CoGS it is recognised we don’t focus on what’s wrong but where you want to get to, and if you got there, the problem would have changed. You are much more likely to get agreement in teams about where you want to go rather than how you got to be where you are. So being goal-focussed facilitates co-operation and can reduce splits. Make sure you focus on positive goals rather than negative ones. Negative goals usually involve ‘stopping’ or ‘reducing’ but framing the goal in those terms keeps the focus on the problem not the solution and it closes down creativity and imagination about how to get there. A commitment to positive to goals goes a long way to getting people working together. But if its not enough then team members should face s the issues in a spirit of respecting others and valuing teamwork. This step, as with all the others, look to involve the family and young person as much as possible. Be bold, set high goals and think like high-achievers
- Devise plans to achieve goals and manage risk & challenge.
Once you have goals you need to concentrate on working out how to achieve goals. It may take time to achieve the goal/s set so plan for what to do while the problem exists. Often teams can get bogged down in managing risk that they are too exhausted to think about achieving their objective- and that’s the energising part where everybody feels success and achievement. So, always make sure that the energy goes on devising plans to achieving goals first. Often, when it comes to think about how to react problems, people feel much more optimistic as they have the a solution clearly in mind. Work towards ways of achieving the goals by working through a problem solving system with as many people involved as possible; stating the agreed goal, listing as many ideas have people come up with. This is the creative stage, encourage wild and seemingly impossible ideas to stimulate the imagination. Then, critically evaluate these ideas and decide what might be done. Think big and think about what is possible. Watch out for negative thoughts that restrict possibilities. Rather turn them into constructive criticism and problems that can be solved. When you have some good ideas and shared agreement, and this can take time, so always remember how much time the problem is already taking up) then consider about how to manage risk. The principle to remember here is to try and do the minimum that safety requires. Often people will try and ‘ignore’ the problem so they can reinforce the appropriate positive aspects. The trouble is some behaviours can’t be ignored so just do the minimum that is necessary to keep the situation safe and then go back to focussing and rewarding the positive (remember, big problems may require big ‘minimums’).
3. Implement plans
Put the plans into action. Everybody needs to be clear what their part is. Often great plans can be devised but it involves people doing tings that they haven’t signed up to, or couldn’t do if they want to. Make sure everybody is involved and clear.
4. Review and evaluate the process.
It is important to keep an eye on what is happening and whether the process is succeeding. Things don’t usually fall into place straightaway so commitment to the process is needed rather than thinking ‘well, that hasn’t worked, there’s no hope’ or ‘scrap the whole thing!’ There can be errors such as the goal is not right, or te goal can be good but there is no plan. Equally, it may be the goal and plan are great but no-one has done what they were supposed to. Also, it may be working but no-one has noticed yet. Change can sometimes be hard to see, especially small change which is often how it starts. Look for ‘unique outcomes’ and use rating scales to pick up small changes.
Why CoGS works
The process calls upon a number of principle that helps organise thinking and actions positively. It draws upon various theories without privileging any particular approach so the most appropriate can be chosen. Key ideas of CoGS are;
1. Goals define the objective. The more clearly the objective is described the more likely it is to be achieved. An appropriate goal is something, which if it is achieved, will make the problem behaviour less likely to occur - or maybe not occur at all.
2. By being clear about the goal we can begin to recognise the steps needed to achieve it.
3. By keeping the goal in mind we are more likely to pay attention to when behaviour is appropriate and can ask how might this behaviour be reinforced. Also, to call upon solution focused systemic theories it helps to recognise exceptions to the problem behaviour.
4. Factors underlying challenging behaviours are often complex. Attribution theory proposes that we are likely to seek for reasons for this behaviour and often inappropriately ascribe more intentionality in the behaviour than is the case. This can often lead to anger, blaming, competing explanations with colleagues or ‘stuckness’ if we do not have a satisfactory explanation on which we can progress. By concentrating on goals we can overcome some of these difficulties.
5. Goals aid collaborative working and to paraphrase Salvador Minuchin ‘children thrive when (the adults) in their lives collaborate’. Effective teams are those that have shared, common goals. Clear goal setting encourages good teamwork and gives information about performance expectations.
A goal is the objective of overcoming a specified difficulty and transforms our thinking from being problem to solution focused. For instance, if a difficulty was a young person's disruptive behaviour at bedtime a reaction may be to impose sanctions. This, in turn, negatively affects the relationship and further challenging behaviour results. A goal might look towards how a peaceful bedtime routine be established. Sanctions may or may not play a part but there is a focus giving positive behaviour positive consequences. This allows for more creativity and positive interventions.
Effective goals tend to be specific, measurable and achievable. It is also important to high expectations of what may be achieved. Goal setting allows people to be explicit about their goals but often they may be in conflict. In healthy teams there is always a place for debate and disagreement as long as, like effective parents, a common goal can be reached. It may be important to appoint a leader who can take responsibility for seeking out views and finding commonalties. If disagreement can not be resolved it might be useful to seek expert consultation.
There can be difficulties in getting people from different agencies working together, or even people from the same team. It can be useful to remember, consensus isn’t always necessary but respect of all voices and validation of different views and voices is and these perspectives should be expressed. Try to create a climate where ‘uncertainty’ is safe’ and acceptable and allows further problem-solving. Creativity, spontaneity, flexibility are values to be encouraged and valued. Look for ideas that ‘make people’s day’. Allow people to try new things rather make them stick to role.
Avoid people dominating through having too rigid views or blocking through non-attendance. Can communication be fun, novel and be done creatively using new technologies. Having cakes, or fun breaks, can make a big difference. All these take time but problems can also consume time.
Young people and those with parental responsibility should be involved in goal setting for without their co-operation, success is unlikely. In some institutions there will be so many staff they can not all be involved. The effectiveness of plans will be increased if key staff are involved and plans are type written, readily available to staff working with the young person (for example, agency staff) and frequently discussed at hand-overs, team meetings etc. Training may be important. Institutions can make a commitment to working in this way.
The structure of the plan lays out a route map to how the goal may be achieved. However, clear goals and good plans do not guarantee success. The process should evolve as more is we learnt about the young person and how best to work with them. Plans can call upon the skills of all professions and also helps specify how routine treatments like anxiety management or social skills fit into overall treatment plans. The plan has the advantage of helping team members to be clear about our objectives for each young person and can also help to serve in working collaboratively with families and other agencies working with the young person.
If you want to know more about CoGS or are interested in training packages, please contact Steve Killick email minds.eye@live.co.uk
