Motivational Interviewing: Skill Building Services
You've trained your staff to do Motivational Interviewing...are they
doing it? Have you measured their effectiveness recently?
Since 1998, we have developed an effective process to evaluate and improve Motivational
Interviewing (MI) skills for thousands of officers, case workers and mental health
practitioners. We provide agencies, trainers and individuals with a low-cost
and painless way to benchmark and evaluate the effectiveness of staff contact
sessions.
It supports and cements the skills taught during MI training so that they can be
effectively applied and evaluated post-training. By establishing benchmarks
followed by coaching, a baseline is created for evaluation, staff are provided
with personal feedback, and goals for improvement can be easily set.
- Large corrections and treatment systems
- Small corrections and treatment agencies
- Individual MI practitioners
- MI and assessment trainers
- ...Anyone who uses MI!
- Since 1998, J-SAT QA specialists have assessed thousands of interviews from intake
officers, case workers, and mental health practitioners that allows interviewers
to compare their skills to national and agency averages.
- We stay up-to-date with coding research, using coding systems most frequently
recommended by MI developers and trainers.
- Our QA specialists maintain inter-rater reliability through ongoing feedback and
coaching from a certified Trainer of Motivational Interviewing Supervisors and of
Tape Critiques by William R. Miller and Theresa Moyers.
- Our coaches are experienced in law enforcement, probation, treatment, counseling,
and/or coaching fields. They are familiar with the challenges of working in criminal
justice systems, the range of problems clients face, the scheduling demands placed
on probation officers, the challenges of receiving multiple trainings and acquiring
several skills, the difficulties posed by the detail of assessment interviews, and
the challenges probation officers face in embracing their dual roles of supporting
clients and enforcing terms and conditions.
- We have been recognized by the National Institute of Corrections for our long-term
commitment to implementing MI in corrections and treatment systems across the country.
- We are working with international MI developers, researchers, and practitioners
to create state of the art resources for MI implementation through supervision founded
on MI QA feedback and coaching.
Take your training to the next level...
Even the best MI Training won’t lead trainees to competent skill use without follow-up
feedback and coaching. Reliable MI QA requires detailed training and frequent review
that exceeds the resources of many MI trainers and agencies.
To reap the benefits of MI QA without the hassle of ongoing coding research and
training, MI trainers and treatment and corrections agencies may contract with J-SAT
for any of the following training and QA services:
- Tape coding and feedback for assessment or motivational interviews
- Coaching for assessment or motivational interviews
- Tape coding training
- Coaching training
- Training materials (demonstration videos, manuals, software, etc.)
- MI or assessment training
- Co-trainers
MI Trainers may provide their own coaching, using J-SAT’s coding feedback reports,
or have J-SAT coaches provide this service as well. Contact us
for more information on pricing, branding opportunities, and volume discounts.
Painless & Refined
MI skills are most commonly assessed by rating recorded contact sessions (interviews).
Through a coding system developed by the research associates of William Miller and
Theresa Moyers, the review process allows for identification of individual skill
improvement goals. Interviewers then practice these skills with coaches during
20-30 minute coaching sessions. This individualized coaching
solidifies the transfer of MI training to on-the-job usage.
After training, each trainee sends to J-SAT a recording of an on-the-job MI or an
assessment interview conducted as part of routine interviewing practices. J-SAT
QA specialists assess the following elements of MI on each tape:
- Interviewer Clinical Skill Percentages— including closed and open
questions, reflections, summaries, affirmations/support, change talk elicitations,
teaching, and confrontation.
- Interviewer Interpersonal Skill Measures— ratings on a 1-7 scale
for overall use of MI Spirit (Evocation, Collaboration, and Autonomy-Support), Empathy,
Genuineness, Egalitarianism, Acceptance, Warmth, and Direction.
For Motivational Interviews, which aim to elicit client commitment to making positive
changes, QA ratings also include Client Change Talk Counts—the frequency and strength
of the client’s expressions of desire, ability, reasons, need, and commitment to
change in a positive direction, as well as recent steps taken.
Interviewers receive individualized feedback reports including charts that allow
them to compare their percentages and ratings to national, agency, and ideal averages.
Rater comments commend interviewers for their strengths and suggest ways that interviewers
can balance their skill use to lower client defensiveness and increase client commitment
to positive change.
»View a sample report
Feedback reports identify interviewer strength and growth areas that may be addressed
in 20-30 minute phone coaching sessions with J-SAT coaches or other MI trainers.
Coaches answer questions about assessment, MI, and QA processes, encourage interviewers
about their skill strengths, and help identify skill improvement goals. Most importantly,
they give interviewers the chance to practice MI skills during the session and create
a plan for ongoing skill practice. It is this on-the-job coaching and practice that
boosts post-training skill use by 90%—the critical element of MI QA!
Affordable & Flexible
Our MI Quality Assurance process is highly affordable and easily scales from individuals
to agency and system-wide assessments. Our standard rate per assessment is
listed below. Customized options and potential group discounts are available
upon request.
$150/person: Standard MI QA Package
Package includes:
- Individual assessment using a proprietary research-based coding
system
- Personalized report including: easy-to-read charts, comparative data, comments, and
suggestions
- One-on-one coaching to review the report, answer questions about
the assessment
The Research...
We adhere to MI QA practices that are research-proven and time-tested. If you are
interested in the specific research used in our process and reporting, please contact us.