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Motivational Interviewing and College Planning

Lisa R. Micele

Director of College Counseling

University of Illinois Laboratory HS

1212 W. Springfield Avenue

Urbana, IL 61801

P: 217-333-2873

EMAIL: lmicele@illinois.edu

Steve Murray

Director of Counseling

Notre Dame College Prep

7655 West Dempster Street

Niles Illinois 60714

Ph: 847-799-8620

EMAIL: smurray@ndhsdons.org

Agenda

⦿ Motivational Interviewing

⦿ Tools for using Motivational Interviewing for College Planning

⦿ Actionable ideas

Adolescence is a time of personal and social development that requires a sophisticated repertoire of social-emotional skills for healthy adjustment. Teenagers often face considerable difficulties negotiating the biological, cognitive, and psychological changes associated with puberty (Yurgelun-Todd, 2007).

Transformation-people want to be well

● Change

● Learn

● Grow

CASEL’s Five Competence Domains

● Competence in the self-awareness domain

● Competence in the self-management domain

● Competence in the social awareness domain

● Relationship skills● Responsible decision making

Motivational Interviewing

A collaborative, person centered form of guiding to elicit and strengthen motivation for change.

⦿Open-Ended Questions- Will you help me understand?

⦿Affirmations- I am really impressed with the way you…

⦿Reflections- It sounds like you …

⦿Summaries- Let me see if I understand …

⦿Eliciting Change Talk- On a scale of 1 to 10, what do you like about your current situation?

William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick-Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People for Change, 1991.

Four Selected Principles of M.I.

Express ‘Empathy-Reflective’ listening by accepting, affirming, and trying to understand the student’s struggles.

Roll with ‘Resistance-Shifting’ and focus on obstacles and barriers that prevent the student from making changes to affirming the student’s abilities to make choices in various situations.

Support ‘Self-Efficacy’ - the attitude that one can act on one’s behalf and it will make a difference.

Develop ‘Discrepancy-Realization’ of discrepancies between goals and values and current behaviors.

M.I. Open-Ended Questions

Gather broad descriptive information.

Facilitate dialogue.

Require more than a yes or no response.

Often start with words like “how”, Tell me about, describe, etc.

Usually go from general to specific.

Convey that our agenda is about the student.

Examples of Open-Ended Question

⦿How can I help you with…

⦿Help me to understand…

⦿How would you like things to be different?

⦿What do you think you will lose if you give up?

⦿How does __________ affect your school/home life?

Affirming⦿Must be done with sincerity.

⦿ Supports and promotes self-efficacy.

⦿ Acknowledges the difficulties the student has expressed.

⦿ Validates the student's experiences and feelings.

⦿ Emphasizes past experiences that demonstrate strength and success to prevent discouragement.

Examples of Affirming Response

⦿ I appreciate that you are willing to meet me today.

⦿ You are clearly a resourceful person.

⦿ You handled yourself really well in that situation.

⦿ That is a good suggestion.

⦿ You have accomplished a lot.

Reflective Listening

⦿ Reflective listening begins with a new way of thinking.

⦿ It includes an interest in what the person has to say and a desire to truly understand how the person sees things.

⦿ It is hypothesis testing.

⦿What you think a person means may not be what they mean.

Four Levels of Reflecting

⦿Repeating-simplest

⦿Rephrasing-substitutes synonyms

⦿Paraphrasing-major restatement

⦿Reflection of feeling

Reflecting Phrases

⦿ So you feel like

⦿ It sounds like

⦿ You are wondering if

⦿ So I hear you saying

⦿ This is what I am hearing, please correct me if I am wrong

Summarize⦿ Summaries reinforce what has been

said.

⦿Demonstrate that you have been listening carefully.

⦿ Prepare the student to move on.

⦿ Link together the student’s feelings of ambivalence.

⦿ Promote the perception of discrepancy.

Examples of Summaries

⦿Let me see if I understand…

⦿Here is what I have heard…

⦿Tell me if I have missed anything…

⦿What you said is important…

Primary Goals of M.I.

⦿1. Resolve ambivalence

⦿2. Reduce resistance

⦿3. Move students toward a commitment to change

⦿Examples of putting these goals in action…

1. Resolve ambivalence

⦿ Excited about options for college… BUT

⦿ Anxious about “letting go” of options

⦿Managing uncertainty

Getting students ACTIVELY ENGAGED

in this process of exploration – to

diminish the ambivalence.

Explore and Resolve Ambivalence

⦿Messages from peers, parents, society, your school culture

⦿ Stressful process / choose poorly – costly in terms of well being

⦿ Perceived gravity of decision

› AVOIDANCE

› LACK OF MOTIVATION - connect them to their Interests/Values/Abilities

› MIXED FEELINGS: excited, overwhelmed, anxious, lack of confidence, wanting to explore, scared to disappoint others, FEAR!

LACK OF MOTIVATION: EXPLORE

2. Reduce resistance

⦿ Accepting and Affirming

⦿ Power of Story Telling

⦿ Understand the Struggles

⦿ Empathize with parental pressures

⦿ Know the school climate / peer pressures

⦿ Follow up meetings with school counselor and college specialist

Peer College Counselors

(PCCs)

Continued…

⦿ Identify RESISTANCE

⦿ FEAR / ANXIETY

⦿ NORMALZE the ANXIETY

⦿ Ask about PAST EXPERIENCES

⦿ SHIFT the FOCUS

› AFFIRM

› INVITE (rather than IMPOSE)

› PROPOSE IDEAS LIKE THIS:

⚫ “Do you believe it would be beneficial to shadow an Engineering student at the UIUC?”

All of our SSO (Student Services Office) programming is optional.

We offer seminar topics for a week. Repeated 4 times / different

times of the day to accommodate students. We INVITE them! (We

copy parents / guardians on all invites to keep them in loop.)

3. Move students toward a commitment to change

⦿ Discuss discrepancies between goals and values and current behaviors

⦿ Develop realistic plans

⦿ Acknowledge the harm that can occur from remaining stagnant

⦿ Weighing the Pros & Cons

⦿ Student stories / testimonials / relate to struggles

• PCCs (Peer College Counselors)

• Alumni Talks

• Skype Sessions with alums

• Older alums share their journey / their stories

Continued…

⦿ Involve Support

⦿ You cannot change their minds / their values

⦿ Walk with students on their journey

⦿ Respect where they are in the process

⦿ Peacefully and patiently challenge them› “What is your biggest fear?”

› “What do you see as your biggest obstacle?”

• PCCs (Peer College Counselors)

• Alumni talks

• Junior Conferences

• Family Programming (Parents & Students – Grades 9 -12)

⦿ OPTIMISM› “Your actions will make a difference!”

⦿ Counselors as GUIDES

⦿ Help them to develop an OPTIMISTIC VIEW of the college planning process w OBJECTIVES

› “I appreciate that you…”

› “It appears that you...”

Move BEYOND AMBIVALENCE⦿ ALLOW THEM TO SUCCESSFULLY GATHER

INFORMATION

⦿ DEVELOP A PLAN

⦿ USE TIMELINES

⦿ INVOLVE PARENTS

CDM Follow up / community college is great resource

Informational Interviewing

Job Shadowing

Talk with Alumni / Talk with TEACHERS

Use local resources (Meet admissions / undergraduate advisor)

CAMPUS VISITS

Planning for the SUMMER

We are in this together!

RESOURCES:Using Motivational Interviewing for Career and/or College Major ChoiceLynn Guillot Miller, Ph.D.Kent State University

Thank you