Course Description
This publication, Motivating Offenders To Change: A Guide for Probation and Parole, provides probation and parole officers and other correctional professionals with both a solid grounding in the principles behind MI and a practical guide for applying these principles in their everyday dealings with offenders. Through numerous examples of questions, sample dialogues, and exercises, it presents techniques for interacting with offenders at all stages of supervision and at varying levels of commitment to positive change. In addition, it recognizes that deception, resistance to change, and relapse into criminal behaviors are realities for many offenders, and sets forth strategies for dealing with those issues that avoid unproductive confrontation with the offender.
Course Objectives
1. Summarize the history of tension between the punitive and rehabilitative approaches to interacting with offenders, and explore the role of Motivational interviewing (MI) in evidence-based practice.
2. Evaluate the Stages of Change Model while recognizing factors that make change more likely.
3. Identify the roles of empathy, resistance, discrepancy, and self-efficacy, and show how these are pivotal to encouraging change, particularly with offenders.
4. Learn strategies to handle situations that involve deception as well as ways to address violations and sanctions without leaving a motivational style.
5. Determine the most effective ways to incorporate MI into the initial interview, case planning, routine visits, and postviolation interviews.
