The goal of this project is to develop a new method for teaching Motivational Interviewing (MI) to community-based substance abuse counselors, using live supervision by tele-conference. Conferences and workshops are the most common methods of introducing new treatments to substance abuse practitioners, but studies suggest these are relatively ineffective at engendering new skills, while training involving interaction and feedback, including supervision on taped sessions, have shown promise. Live supervision, where supervisors directly observe trainee's interviews, is a cornerstone of basic clinical training in many fields but has seen little use for continuing education. Basic principles of learning theory suggest that live supervision in a trainee's clinical context with immediate feedback would most efficiently shape new counseling skills. Tele-Conference Supervision for Motivational Interviewing (TCS-MI) will follow a didactic introduction to Motivational Interviewing (MI) with live supervision in which supervisors will listen over the telephone to counselors practicing MI and give feedback through an ear-plug monitor, employing the principle of differential reinforcement--positive verbal feedback for MI-appropriate activity and labeling MI-inappropriate activity. Motivational Interviewing is chosen as the focus, because it is evidence-based, widely applicable to addiction treatment, and can be challenging, since mastery requires acquisition of new counseling skills and suppression of others such as persuasion or confrontation. If successful, it is hoped that TCS principles could be applied to training on a wide variety of behavioral treatments. TCS-MI will be developed and refined during an initial uncontrolled trial (Study 1). A controlled trial (Study 2) will follow in which substance abuse counselors recruited from local community-based treatment programs will be randomly assigned to TCS-MI (N = 30), a standard MI workshop (N = 30) or standard supervision with discussion of taped sessions (N = 30). It is hypothesized that counselors trained with TCS-MI will achieve superior MI skills, as measured by the Motivational Interview Skill Coding (MISC) system, compared to controls.
| Wain, R Morgan; Kutner, Bryan A; Smith, Jennifer L et al. (2015) Self-Report After Randomly Assigned Supervision Does not Predict Ability to Practice Motivational Interviewing. J Subst Abuse Treat 57:96-101 |
| Carpenter, Kenneth M; Cheng, Wendy Y; Smith, Jennifer L et al. (2012) ""Old dogs"" and new skills: how clinician characteristics relate to motivational interviewing skills before, during, and after training. J Consult Clin Psychol 80:560-73 |
| Smith, Jennifer L; Carpenter, Kenneth M; Amrhein, Paul C et al. (2012) Training substance abuse clinicians in motivational interviewing using live supervision via teleconferencing. J Consult Clin Psychol 80:450-64 |
| Smith, Jennifer L; Amrhein, Paul C; Brooks, Adam C et al. (2007) Providing live supervision via teleconferencing improves acquisition of motivational interviewing skills after workshop attendance. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 33:163-8 |
