Motivational Interviewing

Courses can be customized for the needs of your setting.  The typical hours needed to present material are listed below. Participants must have an appropriate background in MI to take classes beyond the intro level.

Online Training

Although in-person training is often preferred, online training sometimes improves accessibility, including to rural agencies, distributed agencies with sites across a region or state, and during time of disruption, such as the case of COVID-19. We are skilled in online training and have taught practitioners to use Motivational Interviewing online by employing a combination of mostly synchronous (live) classes supplemented by asynchronous (log in on your own time) homework. Our online classes are interactive and dynamic. We use Zoom, including breakout rooms and supervised practice.

The way we work with agencies

We prefer to work with agencies who want their staff to use MI. This is how it works:

• We train up to 20 people per class, including front-line staff and supervisors, for 30 hours* over 10 weeks. (3 hours a week online).

• Between the first and second training, we meet with your administration team and jointly identify the specific barriers and facilitators to the ongoing use of MI skills by your staff, and how to support fidelity to the MI model.

• We help you develop a MI champion team to promote sustainability beyond our training.

• We help you identify ways to measure the impact of MI on your workforce and clients.

• After 30 hours of training, we meet with trainees on Zoom (in groups of about 4) once every other week for 6 months for coaching where they discuss their challenges with MI so that they maintain their skills and improve their practice.

• During these 6 months, we meet with supervisors monthly to help them think about how to use MI as a coaching tool in supervision, and how to assess and support supervisee use of MI, and how to sharpen their own skills.

• During these 6 months, we consult on an as-needed basis with the admin team for up to 10 hours.

• Whew, that’s a lot, right? Sounds expensive, huh? A year-long package like this costs about $30k, which may be the biggest bang-for-buck you ever get out of agency training.

• If you have more than 20 people that need to be trained, additional class cohorts are less expensive because you’ve already paid for the organizational consulting.

• If you have a group smaller than 20 people, costs are reduced because fewer follow-up coaching groups are required.

  Why do we work like this?

• Workshops just don’t work very well. Agencies spend millions of training dollars, nationally, to run workers through trainings that don’t fit well with their clients or agency practice, or that aren’t supported through ongoing practice and feedback.

• Our intensive work with agencies allows us to understand your agency’s goals and customize our training (skill level, examples, cultural populations, timelines) to fit your workers’ experience.

• We see Motivational Interviewing as a philosophy about how to treat people. (With compassion, empathy, partnership, and through evoking their own goals and supporting self-determination.) Agency culture plays a major role in how people treat each other in the workplace and affects how workers treat clients. When MI is adopted in a department or agency, it improves culture and is self-reinforcing. (This is sometimes called parallel process.)

• Implementation Science is an area of research concerned with what makes Evidence-Based Practice “stick” in an agency setting. Our approach adopts Implementation Science approaches for transfer to the workplace- this is called Implementation Practice.

• We want to help you help the vulnerable people in our communities live better lives. This is one way for us to have a positive impact beyond our own direct work. We believe this is the best way to have the biggest positive impact.

Free consultation

Our first step with agencies is typically an in-person or Zoom meeting to discuss what you’re thinking and how this work might fit your agency. We’re not salespeople- we are social workers. We’ll provide a realistic perspective about whether MI might be a fit for you, offer other possible alternatives, our availability, and just get to know each other a little bit. These calls usually last 30-60 minutes. Email MelanieSage@gmail.com to schedule.

What we teach

During our 30-hour training, we teach the following:

• the Spirit and philosophy of Motivational Interviewing as a way of being with people

• how to have good conversations with people that guide them toward making a positive change

• what to do when clients seem unmotivated in making a change

• how to help people who say they want to make a change but have trouble with follow-through

• how to help people figure out their own goals and reasons for making a change

• what to do when someone is angry or upset with their caseworker

• the impacts of trauma on contact with clients, and how to work with clients in ways that respect their social, cultural, and historical differences.

We teach reflective trauma-informed practice that centers positive relationships, client well-being, and self-determination. ALL of our training is participatory: trainees will practice their skills in and in-between classes. We support the use of these skills through ongoing small-group coaching.

Technical skills: The way MI works

In the above section, we focus on client outcomes. We achieve outcomes through the use of technical skills that are supported by research. Some of these include:

• understanding theoretical underpinnings (self-determination, reactance, positive regard)

• many mnemonics (acronyms of processes that help people remember what to do), e.g. OARS (Open-ended questions, Affirmations, Reflections, Summaries)

• tools for recognizing readiness for change to know where to start

• tools for setting an agenda and focusing a conversation

• tools for using complex reflections to deepen motivation

• tools to listen for and recognize change talk to support more change talk

• tools for disarming conflict and understanding helper’s role in conflict

• tools for knowing when and how to give advice

• “cheat sheets” and “back pocket questions” to support early learning and practice

• tools for measuring how well you are using MI

 Are you an individual looking

for MI training or coaching?

We occasionally offer online MI training and small-group coaching. We do not offer a class until we have a cohort of 20 people. We support your ongoing contact with your cohort so you have practice supports if you do not work in an agency implementing MI at a larger scale. If you are an individual interested in an online training, sign up for our email list here. If you are interested in individual or small-group coaching, email MelanieSage@gmail.com.