I guess you are right that it may not be good to have targets that are too narrow, but at the same time maybe it's better to have targets than to have none.
To keep on the example of children, the discussion in Canada has often been focused on taking children out of poverty. To some extent it is vocabulary, but the Quebec policies are focused on families rather than on children. I think it's important to do that, because children are poor because they live in poor families. It makes sense to think of the whole family as the unit that matters in this respect.
Just to be brief, the lessons that I stress are that it's important to have a strategy, to have targets, to have objectives, and to have a process, also, so that not only does a government present a strategy, but it also has a process whereby stakeholders can have a say, where you make sure you hear from people in situations of poverty and from groups in the communities, so that all are involved. It is not just a matter of having the right policy; it's doing it the right way.
It's important, as you mentioned, to focus on all households and all persons, not only on the poorest. The choice used to be presented very often as either to go universally, give everybody the same family allowance, for instance, or to be targeted and target only the poor. Now most social policies tend to be universal and targeted. You can reach everybody, but with special effort for the poorest. You can be relatively precise.