This 12-week learning collaborative provides an in-depth overview of Motivational Interviewing, a brief person-centered evidence-based practice for strengthening an individual’s motivation for and commitment to change. Motivational Interviewing is frequently associated with substance use, but can be applied to any behavior change such as increasing medication adherence, building independent living skills, reducing self-harm, and managing physical health issues. Motivational Interviewing is a helpful counseling strategy for people with serious mental illness and skills can be applied regardless of how brief or infrequent the encounters are. 

Clinicians will learn to the foundation of motivational interviewing, what the four processes are, and how to apply motivational interviewing skills to practice with patients. Clinicians will learn about ambivalence and how it impacts behavior change and then both learn and practice skills to navigate this ambivalence to build commitment towards change.  

This learning collaborative will focus on practicing motivational interviewing micro-skills including open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summarizations and provide opportunities to practice skills based on common scenarios for clinicians who work with people who have serious mental illness. Clinical issues, challenges, and recommendations for motivational interviewing to address common frustrations for clinicians will be reviewed.  

Participants will be able to demonstrate specific motivational interviewing skills in patient encounters at the end of the 12-week learning collaborative.