Interested In Learning About Motivational Interviewing? Sign Up For Workshop!

By Vince Schutt, Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, Effective Communications Action Team Member

Imagine yourself in a conversation with your member of Congress.  You start to share a bit about the science behind climate change and the response your hearing back feels no committal and avoidant.  When you hear these words it raises a bit of your anxiety, and your need to communicate the incredible importance of having the most robust carbon fee & dividend policy we can manage. Psychological science knows about this very human and emotional process just as well as environmental science knows about climate change.  

Feelings of anxiety, stress, and the need for a specific outcome change our body’s hormonal balance, shifting what we think, how we think, and what ultimately gets communicated in a conversation. When we hear sayings like “it's not what you say it's how you say it" or “silence speaks louder than words,” we are alluding to the things we already know about about communications processes.  

We, as people, are incredibly intuitive.  We know when people are trying to convince us of something, and when we hear people trying to convince of something the expected human response to someone trying to convince us, is to resist being convinced.

What is Motivational Interviewing?

“Motivational Interviewing” is a communication style that fosters collaboration and offers you as an advocate a package of skills to collaborate with anyone, especially “difficult people.” It is the gold standard for bedside manner for nurses and doctors seeking to help their patients move towards healthy behaviors. As a well-regarded professional approach Motivational Interviewing has thirty years of research across many fields and more than 1,000 studies demonstrating its effectiveness. This workshop will show you how to use Motivational Interviewing to more effectively connect with your members of Congress, local leaders, or even members of your own CCL group. 

About This Series:

The Motivational Interviewing (MI) trainings sessions will be a series of experiential learning activities.  Sessions will include self-reflection, visualization exercises, breakout room activities, role-plays, live observation experiences and more. All of these approaches will combine to move attendees in a direction to help you integrate practice and communication to help you find your ability to be the best motivational interview practitioner you can be.

Introductory Session

The introduction session was held three different times listed below and explored the following ideas:

• Motivational Interviewing as a new approach to environmental communications
• Experiential activities to discover your existing capacity towards MI skillfulness
• A sampling of various concepts from MI
• Activities for locating the current and desired future state of environmental communications

For a summary video of the intro session see here.  Questions? Email info@enviromentum.org.

Intermediate Series
The six-session Intermediate series (attending an introduction session is prerequisite) is a path to revealing the best environmental communicator you can be. The series of 6-workshops has been carefully crafted to advance your potential in Motivational Interviewing as rapidly as possible. Throughout the series powerful experiential learning approaches will be used including self-reflection, visualization, memory recall, debriefs and active participation.  

The intermediate series will be held weekly on Wednesday evenings at 7 pm for two hours, starting on Wed. June 9th - July 14th. There is no registration needed to join. Click on any of the event links above to add to your own calendar and find the Zoom information for the workshop series (same ID for all sessions). Questions? Email info@enviromentum.org ahead of the workshop.

• Part One: The MI Band of Emotions (video)
• Part Two: Active Listening (video)
• Part Three: Utterances (video)
• Part Four: The Four Processes (video)
• Part Five: Bringing It All Together (video)
• Part Six: Deliberate Practice & Measurement-Based Self-Reflection (video)

Note: As with all CCL trainings, confidentiality regarding identifying information about your member of Congress is expected when participating. 
 
About the Facilitator:
Vince Schutt is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) a global network of trainers in motivational interviewing. He is passionate about sharing concepts from the behavioral sciences with those who seek to facilitate change for societal good. Vince has applied knowledge of behavioral science evidence in a number of programs in collaboration with TDSB as an official partner, Ryerson University, Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA), Citizen's Climate Lobby (CCL), Peel Region and more. Vince is committed to advancing motivational interviewing as a way to rethink how we communicate environmental concepts at a societal level.