Motivational Interviewing: Foundational
Trainer: Stephen Andrew, LCSW, LADC, CSS, Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) Certified Trainer
This 12-hour virtual Zoom training provides learners with the foundations of Motivational Interviewing and focuses on the spirit, techniques, and key principles of holding a Motivational Interviewing conversation. This training is highly experiential, and learners will participate in exercises designed to illustrate the concepts described and will be given the opportunity to discuss and debrief their experience of these exercises. The goal of this training is for attendees to feel sufficiently familiar with MI to begin utilizing and embracing it in their day-to-day interactions with the people they serve. This workshop presents the basic principles and skills of MI, using experiential and didactic facilitation methods with the following goals:
- Learn the core spirit and principles of MI, focusing on partnership, acceptance, and compassion.
- Develop skills to identify and address ambivalence and duality in clients.
- Gain techniques for establishing authentic, empathetic, respectful relationships
with clients.
- Practice applying MI techniques, such as open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries (OARS) to motivate clients.
- Learn strategies for setting goals that are client-driven and empower clients to
make decisions.
- Develop skills to provide advice collaboratively in a way that respects the client’s autonomy and encourages motivation.
- Practice MI techniques and refine skills in open-ended questions, affirmations,
reflections, and summarization through role-plays and feedback.
- Develop a personalized plan for continued MI practice and participation in weekly learning communities to reinforce skills.
Motivational Interviewing: Advancing the Practice
Trainer: Stephen Andrew, LCSW, LADC, CSS, Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) Certified Trainer
This 6-hour virtual Zoom training is a highly experiential workshop that will be focused on guiding participants through exercises that will drop them into experiences that ultimately evoke transformative learning. The goal is to have participants be even more bold in their caring work. The mind often blocks us from deepening our connections, but to evoke empathy, compassion, and collaboration, we must go beyond our fears and engage with people through the heart.
Many practitioners already have a good grounding in the basic spirit, structure, and skills of MI, but need help in getting past any roadblocks with the people they collaborate with so that they may fully embrace and utilize Motivational Interviewing. During this workshop, participants will be exposed to a series of different exercises that we have found especially effective in communicating the spirit and in helping deepen practitioners’ skills of Motivational Interviewing.
This MI: Advancing the Practice training workshop includes experiential exercises, video clips, trainer demonstrations, and real and role-play to optimize practice and feedback. The content of this workshop comes from the knowledge that particular skills are more difficult to master and that the mastery of these skills is necessary to increase practitioners’ proficiency. This workshop includes the following:
- A deepening of the participants’ understanding and practice of the Motivational Interviewing spirit, basic strategies, and skills (open-ended questions, affirmations, empathic reflections - both simple and complex, and effective summaries)
- Identifying, eliciting, and strengthening change talk (desire, ability, reason, need, commitment, and taking steps)
- An increase in the participants’ ability to recognize and respond to discordance, such that it is reduced
- Identifying and responding to sustain talk
- A discussion of the ethical concerns of using Motivational Interviewing (When do you use Motivational Interviewing? When don’t you?)
- A presentation of ways to increase importance and confidence (the dimensions of motivation)
- Responding to any specific questions about Motivational Interviewing practice from coaches or staff
- Specific skills to be taught in this workshop:
- Emphasizing choice and supporting autonomy
- Empathy
- Asking permission to make a transition, give advice, or provide information
- Giving feedback discreetly
- Reflecting discordance and sustain talk
- Being alert to the client’s readiness to change
- Strengthening inner commitment to change and raising awareness of, and responsiveness to, self-motivating statements and behaviors
