This Lesson will go into depth on the Motivational Interviewing methods for helping the client move from evoking into Change Planning. We will discuss the six signs of readiness to watch for in client statements and the three main parts to helping them make this transition. Throughout this lesson, we will provide multiple opportunities for you to test your knowledge and understanding of the discussed information.

Signs of Readiness to Change

At some point in an MI conversation, we will get signs that it is time to move from the Evoking process to the Change Planning process. There are six signs of readiness we can listen for from the client: Increased frequency and strength of change talk, taking steps, diminished sustain talk, Resolve, Envisioning, and Questions about change. We provide an opportunity for you to test your understanding of the Signs of Readiness by presenting three possible client statements and asking you to pick which one offers more evidence for each of the six signs of readiness.

Transitioning to Planning

When we sense readiness to move from the Evoking to the Planning process, using a Transitional Summary is the best way to stay in a Motivational Interviewing style. A Transitional Summary collects change or commitment talk and reflects to the client their reasons for moving toward change. We walk through the process of building a Transitional Summary from a collection of client statements. We also provide you the opportunity to come up with and compare your own Transitional Summary with one that works for the example statements.

Giving Advice

The acronym PAPA is used in Motivational Interviewing when an interviewer finds it both beneficial and appropriate to provide the client with advice. PAPA lays out the sequential steps for offering advice to clients: Prepare, Ask, Provide, Ask. We explain each of the steps individually with examples and provide you with the opportunity to correctly match statements to their appropriate part of the PAPA method.

A Change Plan Worksheet 

Once the client has expressed a commitment to change, the final step for any plan in the planning process is to consolidate commitment. This can help significantly to evoke and reflect statements of commitment to proceed with a specific plan. A Change Plan Worksheet is composed of six elements that can be turned into open questions to evoke a specific commitment plan from the client. This plan can be used in various ways to strengthen their commitment (e.g. sharing with family members, signing and dating the worksheet). We give you the opportunity to come up with and compare your own open-ended questions for the six elements in a Change Plan Worksheet.

Please Note : As part of our content licensing agreement, these Motivational Interviewing courses are intended only for those practicing or providing services in Michigan, and only provide CEUs valid to Michigan providers. By enrolling in these courses you certify that you meet this criteria.

1. You will review six different signs of readiness to change and pick our examples of these signs from actual client statements.
2. You will practice composing transitional summaries which help us to the steps of commitment and planning.
3. You will review how to give advice by using a Motivational Interviewing style.
4. You will review barriers to change that staff can help clients to negotiate in a more effective way.
5. You will recognize change plan worksheets and review how to help clients enact "pathway steps" to increase the success of planning efforts.