Therapeutic Goal Setting: Exploring hope and aspirations with SMART goals

This practical online workshop provides OTs with the skills and confidence to do goal setting differently. Starting with client hopes and aspirations, then translating those aspirations into measurable SMART goals that organisations require. The workshop will provide you with a clear framework for having richer goal-setting conversations, stronger therapeutic relationships and clients who are genuinely motivated to achieve.

Program Overview

SESSION OVERVIEW

Disability, injury or illness can profoundly impact an individual's ability to participate in the roles and activities that give life meaning. When people lose sight of what matters to them, pessimism sets in, motivation drops, engagement in therapy suffers and goal attainment declines.

Goal setting sits at the heart of occupational therapy practice, yet the pressure to meet organisational and funding requirements can push clinicians toward generic, checkbox goals that fail to inspire. When goals don't connect to what a person truly wants from their life, therapy loses its power.

What You Will Learn By attending this workshop (Key Learning Objectives):

Understand why aspirational goal setting works and how starting big before going small drives hope, motivation, and better outcomes
Gain a practical framework for facilitating meaningful conversations that uncover what clients truly want from their lives
Master the art of building SMART goals from aspirations whilst meeting organisational / funding requirements without losing the person at the centre
Be introduced to the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) and how to co-create individualised, measurable goals that track real progress
Leave energised and equipped to build stronger therapeutic relationships and client-focused goals

By attending this workshop, you will:

Gain a ready-to-use goal-setting framework applicable across a range of practice settings and client groups

Strengthen your ability to facilitate meaningful, client-centred goal-setting conversations

Learn how to balance aspirational goal setting with organisational and funding requirements such as the use of SMART goals

Develop strategies to build therapeutic relationships that improve client motivation, engagement and goal attainment

Reconnect with the core values of occupational therapy practice

Who is this session for?

This session is relevant for OTs at any career stage, across community and inpatient settings and with a broad range of client demographics and practice areas including disability, aged care, mental health and rehabilitation.

DATE:

Monday 9th November 2026

TIME:

Presentation Commences:

12:00pm – 1:30pm | VIC, NSW, ACT, TAS |

11:30am – 1:00pm | SA |

11:00am – 12:30pm | QLD |

10:30am – 12 noon | NT |

9:00am – 10:30am | WA |

The session will run for approximately 90 minutes.

Please login 10 minutes before the scheduled presentation time

VENUE

This is a 100% virtual event run on the Zoom platform. You will receive an email with details to access the event the day prior to the scheduled event date.

RECORDING ACCESS:

This session WILL NOT be recorded. 

This is an interactive workshop with participation encouraged.

COURSE MATERIALS

Participants will be able to access the course materials online in their OTA account for the event and for a further 12 weeks after the event.

REGISTRATION FEES

EARLYBIRD – Book on or before 24th September 2026

OTA Member: $60

OTA Student/New Graduate Member: $55

Non-member: $80

STANDARD – Book on or after 25th September 2026

OTA Member: $66

OTA Student/New Graduate Member: $60

Non-Member: $90

RSVPS close at 11:55pm AEDT on 5th November 2026

Members must be logged in with username and password to register at the member rate.

DISCLAIMER

All information is correct at the time of publication. OTA reserves the right to alter or delete items from the CPD calendar as required, and takes no responsibility for any errors, omissions, and changes.

All resources including copies of the presentation, along with all supporting documents and links are not for distribution and are the property of the presenter.

An OTA staff member or representative may be photographing this event for use in OTA publications and/or on OTA social media sites. If you do not wish to be photographed, or have your image published please make this known to the OTA representative at your course or contact OTA on 1300 682 878 or info@otaus.com.au

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Terms and Conditions including OTA’s refund and cancellation policy are available here

CONTACT US

Please email info@otaus.com.au or phone 1300 682 878

Presented By

Nadine Holgate

Nadine is the director of Neurolinks, a community based Occupational Therapy private practice in rural Victoria. Nadine has over 20 years’ experience in providing community-based acquired brain injury (ABI) rehabilitation. She has developed expertise in supporting people with cognitive and behavioural impairments to increase their participation in meaningful activities and life roles, and forming a positive identity. Nadine has been a Positive Behaviour Support PLUS (PBS+PLUS) research clinician at Monash-Epworth Rehabilitation Research Centre since 2016. She currently provides multidisciplinary training and supervision to allied health professionals as part of the PBS+PLUS knowledge translation. Nadine is passionate about improving rehabilitation outcomes for rural people with brain injury. She was awarded the 2023 Agrifuture’s Rural Women's Acceleration Grant to conduct an innovative project improving brain injury rehabilitation for rural Australians. Nadine is an experienced presenter and currently facilitates workshops and provides supervision for allied health professions to upskill in community based brain injury rehabilitation and capacity building. Nadine also completed her Master of Clinical Family Therapy which provides a family sensitive practice lens to all her work.