Motivational Interviewing (2 days)

Motivational Interviewing has proved to be highly effective in working with a range of issues related to life change; particularly with addiction.

The course, designed for support workers in working in a variety of settings aims to establish the skills a worker needs in order to communicate with people who have various levels of complex need.

Learners will understand the purpose and principles of Motivational Interviewing and how to use some of the techniques. Comparison will be drawn between Motivational Interviewing techniques and more traditional approaches. A video presentation will help to bring the theory to life.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course participants should understand:

• What is meant by ‘Resistance’
• The need to resist using this term and rather to regard the ‘resistance’ as the challenge to constructively engage;
  the service user and the worker are not forming a working alliance
• The skills the worker needs in order to communicate effectively
• The barriers to communication presented by the service user
• The barriers to communication presented by the worker
• How the worker's best intentions may be perceived as a threat
• During a 1:1, how a worker might increase the communication problems without realising it
• The Cycle of Change
• How the theory can be useful in understanding the dynamic of change and the challenges to the service user
• What is meant by ‘Humanistic Counselling’
• The philosophy of Carl Rogers
• The three Core Conditions of Rogerian Counselling
• The difficulty in applying ‘pure’ theory in a social support setting
• How we can adapt the model
• What is Motivational Interviewing
• The key principles of Motivational Interviewing
• How these can be applied to support work?
• How Motivational Interviewing differs from a more traditional approach
• The need for appropriate consultation and Supervision
• Holding boundaries
• Guarding against dependency/co-dependency
• The limitations of the role and knowing when to refer on

Working methods:

• Tutor presentations
• OHP/PowerPoint
• Small group work
• Case studies
• Word shower method
• Plenary discussion
• Role play
• Video presentation
• Handouts