Using Motivational Interviewing (MI) to Support Families (Pt.1)

00:00:15:06 - 00:00:33:20

Steve Macabee - Host

All right. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome to The P Pod, The Partnership podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. Now, as you know, as part of these podcasts, we like to kind of explore different aspects of safeguarding, be that looking at certain agencies and what their role is, but also in terms of some difficulties. Sometimes we work with families and some of the strengths of working with them.

And today's podcast is really sort of picking up actually around that about how is it that we engage with families, how do we work with families to support their needs and into in order to improve their circumstances? And so on The back of that, I'm really pleased to be joined today in the studio with Jackie Webb, who I'll let Jackie introduce itself in just a second, but I personally feel has been really instrumental in working within Somerset over the last few years, really bringing about sort of new ways to work with families, which I feel I've already had quite a kind of revolutionary effect on how we engage, how we support families and how we improve their circumstances and the circumstances for young people in Somerset, ultimately. So, Jackie, welcome along. Thanks for coming along here today.

00:01:17:19 - 00:01:18:15

Jackie Webb

Thank you for asking me.

00:01:18:18 - 00:01:36:22

Steve Macabee - Host

So let's get stuck into it. And for anybody listening to this who is kind of wondering what we're gonna be talking about, going to be talking about motivation, interviewing, and if anybody's never heard of that before, could you kind of sum up for us in a in a nutshell, what is motivation interviewing and what sort of the principles of it?

00:01:36:23 - 00:02:02:16

Jackie Webb

Yeah, well, essentially a motivational interviewing conversation is a conversation about change. So it's probably a slightly different sort of conversation than people are used to having about change. And it might be where the person on the receiving end may not yet see that they need to change. They might be feeling quite defensive, potentially quite resistant about making that change.

Maybe other people see the need for that person to make change or it might be that the person themselves wants to make a change but is stuck. They don't know how to proceed. So essentially motivational interviewing is how you engage somebody to have a conversation where change is needed or desired.

00:02:20:21 - 00:02:37:22

Steve Macabee - Host

And then that's key, isn't it, really? And when we're talking about working with families, when we talk about safeguarding children, like you say, sometimes families are very aware of that need to change and very open to that change. But a lot of the time actually either not recognizing that need to change or sort of finding some role or difficulties in doing so.

00:02:37:23 - 00:02:39:04

Jackie Webb

Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:39:06 - 00:02:43:20

Steve Macabee - Host

So what is in why and how do how does that work to to support that?

00:02:43:22 - 00:03:13:10

Jackie Webb

Well, one of the things I think really helps at the start of people learning about me is to think about what ambivalence is, ambivalence about making change. And I always start training with that. You know, what is ambivalence? And sometimes people think it's kind of unique and you can't really be bothered, don't really care. But actually it's when somebody has some conflicting simultaneous conflicting feelings and thoughts about a change.

So it could be I know I ought to stop drinking. My family hates it. Everyone keeps telling me I need to do something about it. And you know, I know it's affecting. I know it's affecting me. I know it's affecting my health. But all my friends drink. I don't know how I'd cope if I didn't have a drink.

So it's those kind of two teams almost in the person's head, the fours and against. What happens, though, with helping professionals is potentially unwittingly, they can make it less likely that the person makes the change by taking up the argument for the change. So by kind of trying to persuade or convince or argue for the change, what tends to happen is if anyone's at all ambivalent about it, they feel that imbalance and they want to argue against that side.

Right? So the point of that is that my is all about the verbalization of motivation. And so as the person hears themselves defending why they don't want to change or why it's too difficult or not the right time or whatever, they convince themselves not to change and they become stuck. Now, what can happen then is you get into a dynamic of the helper upping the ante, persuading even harder, maybe warning, maybe even threatening.

You know, Well, if you don't do this, this you know, I hear sometimes about people kind of stepping things up to a higher level when the person doesn't do what they think they should do. And unfortunately, what can happen then is the person just gets quite entrenched in not changing, which is obviously not going to be helpful for them or potentially their family.

00:05:03:04 - 00:05:24:04

Steve Macabee - Host

I know, I know it obviously undertook motivation to bring you and training with you a number of years ago now, and I certainly saw it as a huge eye opener to my practice. And I think talking from a personal level or moment, I think what I recognized is that I tended to go into situations feeling like I should be the expert.

Yeah, I should have the answers. And I think I saw that that pressure probably from other agencies who might, you know, asked for our involvement, probably for myself in terms of feeling like I should know these things sometimes from families who may have those expectations. Oh, great. Someone is coming in now to sort this out for me.

And I think that was the biggest kind of shift initially from myself is to go actually, who is the expert in this relationship?

00:05:51:13 - 00:06:20:22

Jackie Webb

Absolutely. That's a burden for workers as well, isn't it, to feel that they have to have the answers and we can get ourselves into a bit of a trap of thinking, I just need to ask enough questions. And that kind of suggests to the person on the other end that you're going to come up with an answer. And as you know, Steve and I might we move away from that kind of question answer trap, we call it, of thinking, I've just got to ask the right question and then I'll get the answer here.

And often in your head as a work, you're thinking, I've got no idea what to do here.

00:06:25:23 - 00:06:29:03

Steve Macabee - Host

You're wracking your brains. Yeah. Coming. You suggest something.

00:06:29:09 - 00:06:30:08

Jackie Webb

Yes, but.

00:06:30:12 - 00:06:32:11

Steve Macabee - Host

Yeah. Or I've done it. I've tried that, but.

00:06:32:11 - 00:06:56:08

Jackie Webb

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. But yeah, tried that. It didn't work. And then we run out of ideas. What do we do then? So you're absolutely right that it's called the expert trap is. The other thing is the expert trap. It doesn't go down too well. Actually, with service users, people tend to want to be the expert in their own lives.

So in my we talk about they, the client or the services of being the expert, but it doesn't mean that the work, it doesn't have expertise that might be useful to that person. So we talk about it being a collaboration and very much my is about using your expertise if it's needed, but with a light touch and really recognizing that the person who you're working with has probably got really good ideas, they've probably thought of things before and to bring that into the conversation.

Yeah.

00:07:28:17 - 00:07:34:02

Steve Macabee - Host

So well, in terms of kind of the principles, what sort of underpins it really.

00:07:34:04 - 00:07:55:05

Jackie Webb

Well, the principles of am I. Well you've already talked about one is the person is the expert, you know, so letting go and perhaps we can talk about that a bit more, how hard that is actually letting go, that you feel like you've got to demonstrate that you know, stuff. Yeah, and actually that's a big part of the ego that is helpful to let go of when we're practicing.

I and that can be quite a hindrance actually, that ego. But anyway, but the key principles of motivational interviewing is that the person is autonomous. And the fact is we can't make anybody change if they don't want to. Aside from water torture, which I don't think you do in some sense not.

00:08:14:22 - 00:08:17:10

Steve Macabee - Host

No. Is not generally seen as ethical.

00:08:17:12 - 00:08:39:13

Jackie Webb

So yeah, the person is autonomous. So we all want to be captains of our own ship, don't we? And it's like we are alongside that person almost like. So if they're the captain of their ship, we're alongside standing as second mate, really, and, you know, helping guide the ship. But the person is always in control of themselves.

It's never confrontational. We never confront people. We never say, look, if you don't do do this, then I'm going to take action for a really good reason, because we know that if we start doing that, the person becomes defensive and has the person starts to defend the status quo, things as they are, there's that verbalization again. They hear themselves argue against it.

You can't do that to me. You can't take my kids away. It's like the talk about the change is gone. It's now about defending themselves. So we never confrontational, even when it's quite heated. We can have very difficult conversations using at my we definitely have difficult and very forthright conversations, but they're never confrontational. It's not judgmental. So as as, you know, motivational interviewing is drawn from two main approaches.

One is person centered and the other is behavioral. It's those two behavior, those two kind of streams coming together. So nonjudgmental, non-confrontational, the person is the expert, and it's carried out really importantly within an atmosphere that enables the person to be honest and open about their situation. So we call that the spirit of motivational interviewing. Yeah.

00:10:06:02 - 00:10:14:14

Steve Macabee - Host

So just as you're talking, I'm just wondering how would you explain the difference or describe the difference between motivation, interviewing and counseling, for example?

00:10:14:20 - 00:10:50:10

Jackie Webb

Yeah, well, when I learn motivational interviewing, I was a qualified social worker and not long qualified, but I was also training to be a counselor at the time. So I've kind of got knowledge of both things. And if I'm honest with you, I felt frustrated with person centered counseling on its own, and I quite often train counselors who are getting a bit frustrated themselves where they've been working with people sometimes for years and feel like they're going around in circles.

The main thing that is different about my is it's a guiding approach. So we don't just follow wherever the person wants to go. We're thinking about, well, what's my job, what my pay to do in terms of the change that might be needed so that I don't just just go with I'm guiding that conversation. So there's a purpose and a direction too.

And my conversation.

00:11:16:04 - 00:11:33:21

Steve Macabee - Host

Just to kind of go back a little bit. And how did you get into this into the first place? And you sort of mentioned a little bit about your background. There have previously been social worker and counselling training as well, but sort of, yeah. What is your background? What sort of brought you into the world of motivational interviewing?

00:11:33:23 - 00:11:56:12

Jackie Webb

And it is a world, yeah. So I am qualified as a social worker, but I had always wanted to be a probation officer back in the mid-nineties. For those of people who remember this, you had to be a social worker to be a probation officer. And that's when I first I had a four day introduction to motivational interviewing in 95.

Okay. And it was, you know, when you do a challenging Oh, love it, love it, this is for me. I'm it had all those things I liked about counselling plus And the thing that we haven't yet talked about is the bit that really excites me. On the training is this attention to the language of changing conversations. You know, what is it that we're listening out for, as in my practitioner?

But we'll come on to that. So I, you see how I distract myself. So, so I am, yeah, I learned motivational interviewing in 95, but as people who are, you know, starting to learn them, I themselves will probably recognize you can never stop learning and developing. You can go as deep as you like with this subject. So I'm always learning new things about it.

So I was working in London initially and then I moved to Dorset in the year 2000 and I was working as a probation officer in a drug and alcohol treatment service. And I think that's where I really got to grips with, am I? Because nice guidelines recommend the use of them. I with people with drug and alcohol problems is where it got its first evidence base, working with people, substance use problems.

So it's such a great approach for working with people who are very often ambivalent about giving up substances because of course there are a lot of benefits to them of using drink or or other drugs. So that's where I really used to. Also with the drug and alcohol service for 13 years, sort of halfway through, I became a social worker and working a lot very often because I was a social worker with parents of and substance using parents.

So and engaging them. There were high stakes for those people because very often their children want child protection plans or at risk of that. And they felt that pressure to do something about their substance use. So I really kind of feel like I learned a lot in that service.

00:14:14:12 - 00:14:34:08

Steve Macabee - Host

And I think it's important point you made that and like I say, sort of having the origins around the drug and alcohol use. And I think what's important to recognize is often in those situations and lots of other situations, people essentially sort of construct their lives around that. And so actually, if you're coming along saying that's wrong, that's bad, you need to stop doing it.

Actually, that's a that's a big ask, really huge.

00:14:36:19 - 00:15:03:04

Jackie Webb

And you think about any changes that perhaps you've been ambivalent about making in your own life, whether that be taking more exercise or dieting or, you know, using your phone less or turning off your computer a bit earlier in the day or anything. You know, you could argue one way or the other about, you know, you could convince yourself one way or the other.

And that's exactly the same as our service users or clients. And it's recognizing that we want to almost facilitate site that person having a conversation with themselves about the change. But of course, we are really carefully listening to that conversation and we're not giving as great a weight to one side as the other. And that's where this attention to the language of change becomes very, very important.

00:15:34:02 - 00:15:37:14

Steve Macabee - Host

And that can be hard sometimes as a practitioner when it's really obvious sometimes.

00:15:37:14 - 00:15:38:02

Jackie Webb

To us.

00:15:38:02 - 00:15:42:02

Steve Macabee - Host

Like you need to stop drinking, you need to stop doing this. This is the damage that it is doing.

00:15:42:03 - 00:15:42:19

Jackie Webb

Yeah, yeah.

00:15:42:21 - 00:15:44:11

Steve Macabee - Host

But actually that doesn't work.

00:15:44:13 - 00:15:47:05

Jackie Webb

If it was that easy, then we'd be out of jobs.

00:15:47:06 - 00:16:03:04

Steve Macabee - Host

It's very true. So and you talked about sort of picking up on language or language that that a practitioner may use, but also sort of going into the language that clients may be working with. Could you give us some examples of that? And you mentioned sort of change told us. So, yeah.

00:16:03:06 - 00:16:32:11

Jackie Webb

So and change talk is any talk coming from the, let's say, service user or client that is expressing motivation for making the change? So let's continue with the the person maybe whose family are worried about their alcohol use. In a conversation with that person, you might very well hear both change talk. So motivation for change. And the opposite is that we call sustained talk reasons desire not to change.

So the person might say something like, And I know that it's not good for me. I know I shouldn't be drinking as much as I do, but, you know, it's my only vice and everyone I know drinks as much as I do. I don't see what all the fuss is about. So what we tend to do if we kind of don't know about it's an approach like motivational interviewing, is we start trying to convince the person.

But think of all the money you save. If you stopped drinking, your family would be so pleased with you if you stopped, you know, kind of you.

00:17:09:00 - 00:17:09:20

Steve Macabee - Host

Know, it's bad for your health.

00:17:09:21 - 00:17:39:11

Jackie Webb

Yeah. You know, you're going to feel so you're going to sleep better. You know, you're going to notice, you know, your mood is going to improve because, you know, you feel low after you've been drinking, don't you? But unfortunately, if that person is still ambivalent, which most people are at the start of any kind of treatment, then we may be unwittingly getting them to argue for the other side and actually might make it less likely that they engage or continue with that treatment.

00:17:39:13 - 00:17:46:17

Steve Macabee - Host

Yeah, so you start hearing more that sustained talk. Yeah, that you'll get that. But yeah, actually I need a bit of I need a bit of time for myself. It's really important.

00:17:46:18 - 00:17:47:07

Jackie Webb

Exactly.

00:17:47:07 - 00:17:49:11

Steve Macabee - Host

I know my friends are doing it at his hand on a Friday.

00:17:49:17 - 00:17:50:06

Jackie Webb

That you get.

00:17:50:07 - 00:17:54:20

Steve Macabee - Host

When they're going out for a drink and they invite me along. What am I supposed to say exactly? All those kind of things to me.

00:17:55:01 - 00:18:21:23

Jackie Webb

Yeah. Yeah. So we resist that urge. So in motivational interviewing, another thing that we don't do is we don't ask. The person was getting in the way of you making this change. We might do that very much later in the process, but for the same reasons I've just explained. If you ask somebody, well, what's stopping you from cutting down your drinking, what's the person likely to say?

00:18:22:00 - 00:18:35:03

Steve Macabee - Host

Well, it's hard. Yeah, it's difficult. You know, I've got lots of things going on at the moment. I've got those things in my life. Haven't I still get quite stressed about things? I have a really busy day at work and actually it's important to me just to kind of go, you know, out and you can have a beer and just relax.

00:18:35:05 - 00:18:57:20

Jackie Webb

That you go. So you've just verbalized and you've heard yourself give all those reasons not to change. And that was on me. I asked you for it because people tend to give you what you ask for. But what I want to do instead is say to you something like, Do you mind me asking Steve, what is it that sort of slightly concerns you about your drinking?

00:18:57:22 - 00:19:25:11

Steve Macabee - Host

Yeah, and you can see that difference of people and it encourages you to, to reflect yourself and and I think sometimes to saying well actually yeah, things could be different and yeah you know it's yeah, you know I enjoy having a drink but actually I don't like it because when I do, I know the next day actually I'm in a really bad mood and I tend to chat to my kids and I hate on my kids because actually I want to be a good dad and, you know, this kind of thing.

00:19:25:11 - 00:19:53:17

Jackie Webb

Yeah. And right. They you sort of lots of change talk and also something about your values. And that's something we talk a lot about in my is this isn't generic reasons for change. This is about the person sitting in front of you and what's likely to motivate them. So I might say something like, So it sounds like being a dad is really important to you and your drinking getting in the way of that just slightly.

00:19:53:19 - 00:20:25:14

Steve Macabee - Host

So I'm just wondering in terms I know I talked about at the top of this podcast about some of the work you've been doing in Somerset and and I feel you've been sort of integral to the development of motivational interviewing, certainly within Children's Services. When this was first introduced back at the end of 2019, I think it was, there's been a number of years now you've been working in the area and that was part of a number of initiatives that came in and really kind of mainly sort of embedded into the family safeguarding model within Somerset.

00:20:25:14 - 00:20:39:00

Steve Macabee - Host

And can you explain some of the work you've been doing with Children's Services over the last few years? It's been quite intensive, isn't it? And there's been a lot of work that's been put in and sort of the maybe we get to hear about that work, but also what you've seen coming out from that. Yeah.

00:20:39:02 - 00:21:07:11

Jackie Webb

Yeah. I did some ad hoc work with Somerset Way before this kind of current intensive sort of period of training, but that was quite a long time ago and a lot has happened. So Somerset decided to take on the family safeguarding model, which people may or may not be aware was part of the shifting quite a few different local authorities moving away from adversarial ways of working with parents.

Research was showing that just wasn't working because people don't tend to engage when they're feeling, you know, that they're that, you know, that work is trying to find them out and show them up to be liars and all this kind of thing. And so anyway, that's oversimplifying things a bit, but the way of delivering the family safeguarding model that the approach that underpins that is motivational interviewing.

So yeah, from 2019 we started rolling out my training and really importantly what Somerset Council did, which was brilliant, was they started with managers right from the director down and that was my suggestion that they do that because what very often happens, I've noticed in other places is they decide to train a few, if you like, from the floor up and often it never even gets to two managers.

And of course, managers play such an important part in the embedding of an approach like motivational interviewing, because it's not just am I. We've not even mentioned the word technique because it's not a technique. We use techniques within it, but it is about a way of thinking about what you're doing and why you're doing it. And that, of course, can impact how managers are having conversations with staff, just informal conversations, but also supervision and where you work in authorities, where that isn't happening.

Very often the staff on training will say to me, Yes, but my manager tells me I've just got to go out there and tell these clients what to do. And of course that conflicts within my approach. So when you've got consistency of approach, right from director level to all members of staff, you've got such a much better chance of it being part of what you just do.

You know, everybody's doing it, everybody's talking about it. And yeah, it's I think I said to you earlier, I'm just about to do Cohort 50 for Somerset. And so we were a long way down the line and I've really been impressed by the way that Somerset works in partnership with me. And we've had a, you know, kind of a lovely relationship where we listen to each other feedback and we've we've changed things along the way where it's needed to be changed.

Also, what I think works really well in Somerset is we've got a three day introduction model where people have three or four weeks between two and three to have a go in practice and then to come back and talk about what it's like in the real world, not in the training room. And that seems to work really well.

Also, I'm Somerset have had a lot of development opportunities for people. I've done quite a few webinars that have been recorded and made available online and development group. There were a few people identified early on to sort of become almost like my champion within the service, which worked well. But what we've got now is I'm really keen for Somerset to be self-sufficient going forward, and so we've got some some key people in the organization who are starting to come to the introductory training with almost a different hat on and start to think about how they're going to now take on the development.

So once I deliver the training, the development side of things is going to be handled mostly by, you know, practice educators in within the within the organization.

00:24:57:08 - 00:25:13:21

Steve Macabee - Host

So it's brilliant to say a lot of a lot of work has been done, and I'm just waiting for anybody, for anybody sort of listening to this and thinking, well, that is great. Lots of people within children's social care, Human Services have been trained in it. You've talked about drug and alcohol difficulties with parents. Well, actually, I don't work in children's services.

I don't work in drug and alcohol services. Is this really relevant for me?

00:25:16:23 - 00:25:37:10

Jackie Webb

Hmm. Well, that's one of the things that interests me a lot is how generalizable am I? Seems to be across all sorts of different conversations and was quite funny, is quite often in training. People don't think it's all about their clients. They'll be thinking about the conversation with their husband that they're going to have or their teenage children that evening.

Personally, just and I don't use it on my family, but you know, it's because it's it's not a therapy. It is a conversation. It can be a conversation in as much time as you've got about any sort of change. So and I give the example because I know there won't be any vets listening, but say, I was talking to somebody who a vet, he was saying, oh, Mrs. Smith's coming in again.

She's got an overweight dog. I can't tell you the number of times I've told her. She just needs to exercise it more and feed it a bit less. So what's the point of having that same conversation again with Mrs. Smith? She knows all that already, but we get ourselves into these kind of, you know, patterns with people as just having this like deja vu.

We're going over it again. What you need to do is you just need to and then nothing changes. So am I is about having a different conversation in as much time as you've got about particular change. So if we take that that scenario, if they wanted to handle it slightly different, which is their choice, of course they might say I'm too Mrs. Smith's, you know.

Well, thanks for coming in again with, with Fido. Mrs. Smith, I wonder what you know about the impact of dogs carrying too much weight. So you're asking Mrs. Smith to be the expert on her own dog. Now, how that is done, the tone of voice you use, the genuine curiosity and compassion for Mrs. Smith is absolutely key, because if it's done in a sarcastic tone, well, what do you know about you know, they're not going to answer you truthfully and honestly.

So but let's say it is done in that curious, compassionate way. What do you know about the impact of Fido? Carrying too much weight likely is not. Mrs. Smith will be able to feel able to say, well, I know it's not good for him. It does get out of breath. And, you know, I can see he doesn't enjoy his walk as much as he used to change talk.

So then I might reflect that back. So you're aware that this isn't doing Fido any good and he doesn't seem to be enjoying his life as much as he used to. That doesn't seem so comfortable for you. Now what we're likely to be doing is tapping into Mrs. Smith's own motivation about making change. So in maybe a couple of minutes, I might be able to say to Mrs. Smith, So if you did decide that you wanted to make some changes to to Fido Diet and exercise, you know why it is if you care about how you might go about that?

So I'm getting tapping cause she knows already because I've told her 300 times already.

00:28:31:14 - 00:28:36:01

Steve Macabee - Host

I'm probably very frustrated by then, but she's still not doing it and probably blaming Mrs. Smith.

00:28:36:02 - 00:28:36:16

Jackie Webb

Absolutely.

00:28:36:16 - 00:28:37:08

Steve Macabee - Host

She's not listening.

00:28:37:08 - 00:28:52:18

Jackie Webb

Yeah. And the danger is that Mrs. Smith will start avoiding me, not bring the dog in, because she's embarrassed about that. She hasn't done anything. She might disengage or she might ask to see a different vet or. Yeah.

00:28:52:20 - 00:29:00:24

Steve Macabee - Host

Yeah, I think. I think you're right. And it is completely transferable to anything, any situation. Isn't that where you're looking at change?

00:29:01:01 - 00:29:01:24

Jackie Webb

Absolutely. And that.

00:29:01:24 - 00:29:13:12

Steve Macabee - Host

Change and I know from being previously being a frontline practitioner, from talking to frontline patches Hill on a weekly basis, there is often that frustration of I'm doing this, I'm doing.

00:29:13:12 - 00:29:14:12

Jackie Webb

That. I keep telling.

00:29:14:12 - 00:29:35:10

Steve Macabee - Host

Them, putting all this effort into it, and actually it's stuck and it's very frustrating and can feel very disempowering. I think sometimes for somebody who's working with a family where you're trying to get that change and you've been there six months, eight months, 12 months down the line and still nothing's moved on, It can be very frustrating.

And I think that's the thing for me is just turning that around, turning that perspective around. So actually, you know, if we keep doing the same thing in the same way and we're not getting anywhere, we need to do something different.

00:29:45:17 - 00:29:46:14

Jackie Webb

Telling you something.

00:29:46:17 - 00:29:47:07

Steve Macabee - Host

Absolutely.

00:29:47:07 - 00:30:13:10

Jackie Webb

Yeah. And one of the things that I know people tend to really appreciate when they learn me is that the thing that we call the writing reflex or the fixing reflex that you kind of, you know, sort of hinting at there about. I think, Steve, that, you know, when somebody is, you know, talking about a problem, it's very tempting in our minds to solve it.

For them to think, oh, especially if we've got a lot of experience in that field, we might say, Ooh, I know what they could do or should do about this and to give it to them. But we all know no one likes unsolicited advice today. So what we can do is several things can happen. We start prematurely giving advice before the person's ready for it, and then we tend to get that pushed back.

Yes, but that won't work because I've tried that and it didn't work. Or the person kind of saying that they will do it and not doing it because either they like us and they want to please us or they think it's just the simplest thing to do to get us off their back if they say they're going to do it.

So there are all sorts of dynamics that can be set up so that one of the things that when people first learn my cause is that there's quite a lot to it to learning. And my one of the first things to do is noticing that urge to fix, you know, creeping up inside us and almost like pushing that down, noticing, pushing it down and instead what we key to I is really good listening, really good attention to listening and managing your urge to fix.

00:31:31:13 - 00:31:52:14

Steve Macabee - Host

And think this is something we're going to be exploring over a series of podcasts with these health. Jackie, Because we're very keen to look at it and also sort of moving forward. Obviously you sort of been working with myself to look at how we can kind of roll, am I out wider than, than just children's services? So it's sort of if you want to talk about that at all.

00:31:52:19 - 00:32:24:00

Jackie Webb

Yeah. So yeah, very excited to be asked to roll out some more training for, you know, CCP and we're rolling out one day training so people haven't got to commit to a whole three days. But to introduce people to kind of the main principles, some of the key skills that are used, some of the techniques as well, a little bit of practice, but not too much, but to make it relevant to people in their own settings.

So people so we've done the first one and you know, a lot of teachers and headteachers actually came along to that particular training and yet seem to find it really relevant and seem to be very keen to practice it once they got back. But again, they were talking about compressing at home to begin with which Yeah, but however you can practice that doesn't that.

00:32:44:14 - 00:32:48:00

Steve Macabee - Host

Yeah. But it becomes sort of quite relatable doesn't it.

00:32:48:02 - 00:32:48:07

Jackie Webb

Yeah.

00:32:48:08 - 00:33:03:15

Steve Macabee - Host

I don't think that's the thing for me when I, when I did the three day training a while back is I think for a lot of people I can't say all, but I think for a lot of people there is a kind of penny drop moment and you suddenly go, Actually, I could do it differently. Yeah.

00:33:03:17 - 00:33:37:12

Jackie Webb

I think that's why I think so many approaches and there are loads of great approaches. I'm not trying to, you know, disparage other approaches, but they tend to focus on solutions. And if the person is ready for the solution and wants solution, great. But very often we're working with people who that's not where they're at and we tend to rush to solution to solve a problem that we we perceive where the person actually actually hasn't decided they want to make the change for sure.

00:33:37:14 - 00:33:57:24

Jackie Webb

And that's the bit in my that looks really different, which is and we call it evoking the evoking process where we're building motivation for why I might want to make the change rather than going straight to how I could do it. Once we spent enough time on the motivation side of things, why would I even want to do it?

The how it very often takes care of itself or is much, much easier. If we go to the how to scene, we tend to get that pushback. You know, if people refuting our suggestions.

00:34:10:18 - 00:34:33:12

Steve Macabee - Host

Brilliant. So yes. So with the with the one day introduction to motivation interviewing that's open to anybody within Somerset outside student services is completely free to attend. We're really keen that people do it and this because it does I've seen it have a profound impact on people's practice and as part of that an objective we've been working really to sort of again get that legacy from that.

Also being working with children's services at the moment to see how we can sort of support practitioners who attend that. So moving forward to sort of really embed into practice websites, it's really it's a one day, it's an introduction. Yeah, it's an overview. Well, you're not going to come out from it as an expert in me, but give you that kind of taster to go.

Actually, yeah, we can, we can kind of do this. And I know as part of that, you know, you've been really keen to, to undertake a formal podcast with this kind of talking about some of the nuances around it and and how it can kind of work.

00:35:01:04 - 00:35:25:24

Jackie Webb

Yeah, I'm happy to get into some detail. And also there are some free online resources if people are interested. There are a couple of really good websites if people want a bit more information. So first one to mention is WW w dot motivational interviewing dot org. So that's a free to access website. And the other one is WW dot mint UK and Ireland.

00:35:26:01 - 00:35:32:01

Jackie Webb

Org. So those are a two free websites with lots of resources if people want to find out bit more.

00:35:32:07 - 00:35:53:22

Steve Macabee - Host

Wonderful thanks Jackie I'll pop those links in the in the comments for the podcast as well for anybody who wants to see that. So Jackie Worthing, thank you again so much for joining us today. It's been really fascinating to talk to you and start exploring these subjects. Yeah, really look forward to all of you coming back again and we can start really sort of diving into some of some of the technicalities of it.

And I think the next time we were discussing it, we were talking about actually maybe talking about why is it so hard to do when it seems to offer you.

00:36:01:06 - 00:36:03:05

Jackie Webb

Great subject from Steve.

00:36:03:10 - 00:36:29:05

Steve Macabee - Host

Thanks, Jackie. Great to see you. Take care. As discussed in today's episode with Jackie, the CCP is now offering free introduction to motivational interviewing, training the dates and details which can be found on the ACP training site. Jackie will also be joining us shortly for more episodes where we'll be discussing some of the details of EMI with our next episode discussion concerning why is that so hard to do when it seems so obvious?

So if today's episode has left you wanting more, don't worry, there is more on its way. As always, if you'd like to find out more details on the topics discussed in today's episode, please go to the CCP website at Somerset Safeguarding Children dot org dot UK. If you have any questions or comments arising from today's episode, we would like to be involved in future episodes.

We'd love you to get in touch with us at the P Pod at Somerset.gov.uk. Once again, I'd like to thank Jackie Webb, motivational interviewing Trainer for taking part in today's podcast and of course to you for listening. My name is Steve McCabe and I'm the trainee manager for the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership, and I look forward to you joining us again next time at the P Pod.