Motivational Interviewing

While many conversations between college staff/faculty members and students are rewarding and occur with ease, others can be quite challenging. Some settings in particular can present even the most experienced staff member with barriers to having a collaborative encounter. Effective decision-making for BITs depends on a variety of factors, especially the quality of the information gained from interviews with at-risk students. Motivational interviewing (MI) offers college professionals a practical, common-sense style to engage students in challenging conversations through a caring, empathic and collaborative approach. This webinar will offer participants a brief overview of MI theory and principles, specific early interview MI engagement strategies, skills to respond more effectively to the reactive student, and ideas for structuring interviews that both elicit needed information, while also respecting the student’s readiness to move into more difficult topics.