| Need: What is the need or gap that you are trying to address?
Target group: Who will the project benefit? Aim: What do you want to achieve? Strategy: What action will you take to achieve your aim? Action Plans: How will you do it? Evaluation: How will you know when you have achieved your aim? |
A need is a gap in services or knowledge that when filled will assist the target group to better access justice. Part of the process of assessing whether there is a need is to check what already exists.
Examples of legal needs include:
The target group are the people the project is aimed at. The above examples illustrate three different target groups (i.e. child protection workers, Aboriginal tenants in NSW and parents of children with disabilities).
Aim
The aim is a statement of what you intend to achieve in relation to meeting the needs of the target group.
Some examples are:
Strategy is the action you take to achieve your aim and is sometimes known as the method. It may be necessary to use more than one strategy to achieve your aim. For example:
| Aim | Strategy |
| To improve the knowledge of child protection workers in rural NSW about their legal responsibilities in relation to children at risk of abuse or neglect | Develop and provide a DVD training resource to child protection workers in rural NSW |
| For Aboriginal tenants in NSW to have improved knowledge about legal rights and obligations when renting | a) produce a wallet card to distribute to the target Aboriginal community with key information about NSW tenancy laws; and
b) to run community legal education sessions for community leaders on tenants’ rights and responsibilities |
| For parents with children with disabilities to become aware of the rights of their children about discrimination, access to education, access to disability services and guardianship | Provide information sessions for these parents about these issues |
An action plan separates out the stages of the project and identifies what needs to happen in each stage. It shows who will do what and when to implement the strategies.
For example the stages to produce a booklet may include the following:
| Stage | Activity | Start | Finish | Person Responsible |
| Stage 1 | Plan the process |  | | |
| Stage 2 | Employ author/editor and establish a steering committee | | | |
| Stage 3 | Draft text | | | |
| Stage 4 | User test | | | |
| Stage 5 | Final draft to Foundation for checking against Publishing Checklist | | | |
| Stage 6 | Publish | | | |
| Stage 7 | Promote and distribute | | | |
The following example uses the above project planning terminology:
| Project title | Child protection resource | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description | The project will develop and distribute a self-paced learning DVD that assists community services staff in rural NSW to learn about their mandatory child protection reporting responsibilities. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Need | Community workers in NSW have mandatory reporting responsibilities but many do not have adequate knowledge of what these responsibilities are. Although there are many child protection reporting courses available, these are mainly run in Sydney, and many rural workers do not have access to them. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Target group | Community workers in rural NSW who work with children. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aim | To improve the knowledge of community workers in rural NSW about their legal responsibilities in relation to children at risk of abuse or neglect. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strategy | Develop, produce, market and distribute a CD ROM and workbook learning package. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Action plan |
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