Empowering Change
Empowering Change is a leading organization empowering innovative service providers to enhance existing interactions with multi-barriered individuals. Empowering Change is changing employment and social service provider thinking and practice by increasing effective, short-term motivational service delivery methods across Canada through Stages of Change and Motivational Interviewing training. This innovative company has delivered training to diverse employment services providers and not-for-profit groups throughout Canada.
The model is the future trend for motivating job seekers and fills a gap in the practices not covered by other techniques.
Why Stages of Change and Motivational Interviewing?
Roxanne recently completed a 1.3 million dollar, three-year research project, funded jointly by the Province of Manitoba and the Government of Canada, using the Stages of Change (SOC) Model and Motivational Interviewing (MI) in the employment services field. With almost 3000 people in the research study with 60% Aboriginal. The goal of the project was to help individuals overcome their ambivalence towards looking for, obtaining, and retaining meaningful employment.
By overcoming their ambivalence, it has been demonstrated that participants were able to obtain meaningful employment more quickly, and to remain steadily employed. The results have proven successful not only for those that were initially ambivalent about employment but also for those prepared for a change; this is due to the tendency of motivation to cycle, and the fact that even the most prepared can have a setback in their motivation.
This model is a VERY short term intervention - in the study those individuals who were viewed as being “stuck” moved forward after 3 short meetings.
Research study results reveal:
- 25% – decrease in participants being released from programming
- 34% – increase in first time employed numbers
- 48% – increase in 6-month employment retention
We are the leading organization empowering innovative service providers to enhance existing interactions with multi-barriered individuals. The Empowering Change team members understand how to motivate clients to achieve successful outcomes including employment, or pre-employment training or volunteering. Empowering Change’s mandate is to alter employment and social service provider thinking and practice by increasing effective, short-term motivational service delivery methods across Canada through Stages of Change and Motivational Interviewing training.
What is Motivational Interviewing (MI)?
Motivational Interviewing is a directive, client-centered counselling style that enhances motivation for change by helping the client clarify and resolve ambivalence about behaviour change. MI is an empirically-supported treatment approach developed by Miller and Rollnick (1991, 2002), which helps individuals resolve ambivalence about change and draw on internal strengths and resources to assist in this process. MI recognizes that individuals pressured to change often become resistant. In contrast, creating safe conditions increases the likelihood individuals will explore and resolve problematic patterns of behavior.
The primary goals of MI are as follows:
- Minimize resistance
- Create and amplify, from the client’s perspective, a discrepancy between present behaviour and his or her broader goals and values
- Explore and resolve ambivalence
- Elicit “change talk”
Why Motivational Interviewing?
Because individuals often need help with the why of change before they get to the what and the how. In what situations has MI been used? MI began in the context of treating addictions, but has spread to health care, diet and exercise, mental health provision, prevention and health promotion activities and corrections. The research base for evaluation of MI in these areas continues to grow (Arkowitz & Miller, 2008; Hettema et al, 2005).
What MI is Not?
MI is not a method for manipulating people into change (or buying more products). MI does not marginalize or put people in a box but works to draw out motivation that already exists within. A respectful approach, MI recognizes the individual’s responsibility for choosing and enacting change.
What is Stages of Change (SOC)?
The Stages of Change Model was originally developed in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente at the University of Rhode Island when they were studying how smokers were able to give up their habits.
The SOC model has been applied to a broad range of behaviors including weight loss, overcoming substance and most recently used in the employment field with very promising results.
The idea behind the SOC is that behavior change does not happen in one step. Rather, people tend to progress through different stages on their way to successful change. Each of us progresses through the stages at our own rate.
Expecting behavior change by simply telling someone, for example, who is still in the “pre-contemplation” stage that he or she must find employment in a certain time period is rather naive (and perhaps counterproductive) because they are not ready to change. Each person must decide for himself or herself when a stage is completed and when it is time to move on to the next stage. Moreover, this decision must come from within. Stable long term change cannot be externally imposed.
The stages of change have been conceptualized for a variety of problem behaviors.
The stages of change is: Pre-contemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance, Recycling and Termination.
Pre-contemplation - The stage where the client is not considering change as there is no perceived need for any change.
Contemplative – the stage where the client is thinking about making some changes.
This stage is often refered to as being “stuck” the results of our research study show that the individuals we have been working with have resolved their ambivalence towards employment in as little as three hours.
Preparation - the stage where the client is preparing and becoming determined to make a change.
Action - the stage where the client is actively making changes through modifying behaviours.
Maintenance - the stage where the client is consistently maintaining changes made over a period of time.
Recycle - the stage where the client falls back to an earlier stage of change.
Termination - the stage where the client no longer needs to attend to the task of maintaining the change.
Training Provided For…
- Employment service providers (government and non-government)
- Service providers working with Youth and Youth at Risk
- Probation Officers
- Applications to First Nations communities (leadership and frontline staff)
- Organizational Development/Learning
- Trainers working in smoking cessation programs
- Providers working with newcomers
- Not for profit agencies
- Providers working in the addictions field
- Teachers and resource staff
- Churches (leadership, youth pastors, frontline workers)
