I love that bit at the end of the ‘Italian Job’ when the back of the coach is hanging over the precipice with Michael Caine and the gang in the back working out how to stop the gold and themselves from plunging into the valley. We never find out what happens, as the ‘self-preservation’ song kicks in and the credits roll. (Watch the end scene & listen to the song here if this is new to you or you want a reminder).

So what do they do? Do they defeat imminent death by banding together and hatching a joint plan, or do some of them jump ‘bus’ leaving others to fall to their doom? There’s also the added question of the gold. What is the worth of the cargo relative to the worth of their own, and the other gang member’s lives? It’s a decision of the ‘we’ over the ‘me’, or the ‘me’ over the ‘we’. What will each decide?

So what’s this got to do with us? Well this is a metaphorical dilemma that we all could potentially face in our working lives and some of you may have already been there. We give our all in the pursuit of making life better for others, with the benefit that that usually makes our lives better too, but sometimes that balance is upset and we end up with our rear-ends hanging over the edge of a cliff.

We’re exhausted and overworked, or we’ve had some monstrously difficult decisions to make, some heart-rending issues in the life of a young person to deal with or some dreadful organisational politics to tackle. And it saps us. There is nothing left to give. Sometimes it feels like we just want to let the coach of our working lives just crash to the bottom of the valley. It’s just too much. We’re done. We want to ‘jump bus’, no matter what the ‘gold’ or collective reward might be if we stick with it. We want to choose the ‘me’ over the ‘we’.

But what about the ‘we’? What about the other people on the bus of our working lives? What about the kids or the clients, what about our colleagues? If we let the coach fall, we essentially let them fall (or so it seems anyway). And what about our core which we know really deep down wants to stay on the bus and help? If we let them fall are we in some way letting ourselves fall too? So do we stick with it, or do we quit?

It’s one hell of a dilemma, something no-one wants to face. But how to avoid it? Surely it’s inevitable? If you’re overworked, surely something will give and you end up hanging over a cliff?

Well yes, something will ‘give’, but you have to decide what that is or the circumstances of life will decide for you. The latter equates to a broken you hanging off the edge of a professional and mental health cliff, and the former to a relatively protected resilient you that carries on along the mountain side, right on track, despite the cliff-edge, making a huge difference in the lives of those around you.

I know this is no easy feat, you’re busy, you don’t have time to do what has to be done, let alone time to think about you. But I will say to you- you have no choice. You have to. If you don’t you will end up no use to yourself and no use to anyone else, hanging off the edge of a cliff.

The thing that has to ‘give’ is your prioritisation of time relating to others, to the exclusion of all else, and it has to give way to a prioritisation of some ‘me-time’. Don’t do it and it is you that will be the ‘something’ that ‘gives’ and I don’t mean that in a positive way.

Self-preservation is all about making sure you are stocked up with what you need to keep yourself ticking over nicely. No one can run on empty. A car doesn’t run on empty, an athlete doesn’t run on empty, a star can’t shoot on empty and neither can you. We all need energy to function.

So there are two main things you need to be asking yourself:
1. How do you preserve your energy? and
2. How do you top up your energy, ensuring you are as full as you can be?

The two often intermingle but both must be addressed.

You can tell a lot about a person’s self-preservation levels by what they do at lunchtime. It tells you how they are looking after themselves physically and mentally. If you skip lunch it’s usually because you are busy, hellishly busy. But is skipping lunch actually helping or hindering you in your busyness?

I went through a period where I didn’t really eat lunch. It was a rotten idea. I ended up starving later in the afternoon, unable to think straight and my propensity to catch every cold going seemed to skyrocket. Not only was I not physically refuelling properly, I was not giving myself the opportunity to mentally refuel either. The best thing I ever did for myself, even when I was drowning in casework, was to take half an hour for lunch, eat something proper, take a proper break, out of the office, mobile phone off.

I cannot even begin to tell you how much better I felt, how much more in control of my whole day I felt because of that half hour. It helped me keep my perspective, helped me cope with the lifestyle chaos of the kids I worked with and the associated fire-fighting and it helped me be a better worker. My thinking was clearer, my actions more decisive. I was preserving my energy by being in a fit physical and mental state to be able to cope with the challenges of the day.

And if you are to preserve yourself and refuel, body and mind, consider what you like to do with your spare time. What do you just love doing for its own sake, that is raw ultra-nourishing soul food for you? For me, it’s walking in the countryside, breathing fresh air, having time to think if I’m on my own or time to really connect when with others. Again, I can’t even begin to tell you how this just resets my mind like a chiropractor resets your body.

So what’s your soul food? Is it rock-climbing, is it having a spa day, is it eating out with friends, is it reading a good book, is it writing, is it painting, is it indulging in an air-guitar session? Find your soul food and I promise it will feed you.

It will nourish you in its own right, but it will also help you to switch off from work, or help you to think about it in a more positive motivating way. If you top up your energy levels then you have the energy to lift yourself out of negative thinking and the positive comes more easily. It then becomes way easier to weather the storms, which unfortunately are inevitable.

But this isn’t enough. You need to know thy enemy, you need to know yourself. Us humans are really really dumb and we let stuff get in the way of us doing things that we know will help us. Laziness is one of my enemies, ‘I can’t be bothered’. Busyness is another, ‘I’m too busy’. But you should never be too lazy or too busy to look after yourself or whatever your excuses are. So knowing your soul food isn’t enough. You need to know your enemies and know how to fight them, kung-fu style. Your life depends on it.

This might sound dramatic but it’s true. Your life does depend on it. Your health, physical and mental. Your work life and your ability to be effective. Your home life- the happiness of your partner and your kids if you have them.

If you are whole then everything else in your life has the best chance of becoming and staying whole. You feed life rather than life feeding off you. Even when there is rot around then you are a strong pillar. When you skid on that precarious cliff-top road you steer into the skid and prevent yourself from an ‘Italian Job’ moment. Your internal compass is in tip-top condition, you know your direction and it will take a hell of a lot to get you off that road.

So as the ‘Italian Job’ teaches us, we need to join the self-preservation society. Not only do people in your work life need you to do this, but so do people in your personal life. If you walk down the path of a healthier happier balanced life you will be better able to help those around you do the same. Isn’t that why we’re on the bus in the first place?

Interested in more ideas to keep you sane, focused and motivated? Then you might be interested in this post on Staying motivated: why do you do what you do?

‘Low self-esteem’ is a label that gets slapped on me and my mates the whole damn time. It’s like you workers have one of those old-school price-labelling machines with ‘low self-esteem’ labels and boy do you love using it. Yeah, there’s truth in it, a whole load of truth but labelling me, right in front of my face really doesn’t help. If you repeatedly say it, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s just another thing for me to feel crap about.

So do me a favour would you? Stop saying those words to my face. You see, life has thrown so much trash at me, like abuse, like put-downs, like neglect, that I have come to believe that I am the trash. Giving me another label of what is wrong with me does not help one bit. It’s just another piece of negativity for me to pull down into myself and to dwell on like a music track on loop.

And even worse is when you try to help me deal with my low self-esteem by getting me playing all these negative thoughts about myself in loud stereo with a body-juddering subwoofer: ‘Let’s talk about how your Dad used to beat you up?’, ‘Tell me about when your Mum left.’ ‘Tell me what your teacher used to say to you’.

Well meaning, but totally not helpful. I totally ‘get’ that we do need to talk about this kind of stuff if I am really to move on from it, but if I have rock-bottom self-esteem then I am in no position to handle these kinds of conversations from the beginning. I will likely tell you where to go.

Before we can do anything, you need to build me up so that I have the mental strength and resilience to handle such difficult conversations. You don’t send a physically starved child on a hike up Everest do you? Well please don’t do the same to me, cos that is what you are asking me to do emotionally.

So do you see what I’m saying? You can’t build up my self-esteem by talking about the stuff that gives me low self-esteem cos I don’t have the strength to, because I have low self-esteem. You have to build me up first in another way.

And this is the key. One of the main reasons I feel crap about myself is because I’m actually obsessed about myself and with what other people think of me. I’ve internalised the negative stuff that people have told me and as a result I come to believe it and become paranoid with how others view me. And it destroys me and stops me growing. I won’t try anything new for fear of looking like an idiot. I’ll kick off rather than let people see that I can’t do something cos they’ll think I’m stupid.

Like if a teacher asks me a question that I don’t know the answer to, I’ll sooner give them some serious cheek and get the class sniggering rather than have them see I’m thick and useless. I’d rather have the teacher thinking I’m rude than stupid. I’ll nick the booze from the shop to avoid having my mates saying I’m too pussy and pathetic. Do you get me? What others think is EVERYTHING to me.

Which is the paradox of my low self-esteem. I’m obsessed with what other people think, yet I’ll quite happily dish out anti-social behaviour that draws attention to me and shows no consideration for others. I’ll smash that window, I’ll yell at parents, teachers, social workers, members of the public if it stops them from REALLY seeing me. What everyone sees is not me, they are just seeing a performance that stops them from seeing the inadequate excuse for a person that I feel I am. I’m ultimately obsessed with me and image management. See the image but whatever you do, don’t see below that.

So I’m all curled up in on myself, constantly trying to protect myself from further hurt and stopping people from seeing what a messed up failure I am. But this whole plan is flawed because as much as I’d like to think it doesn’t, the negative views people have of me and my image management behaviour do ‘get’ to me. Which just makes it worse, I curl in on myself more, and round we go again. More image management, more distractions from seeing the real useless me, more negative views, more image management and on and on it goes.

So you can see why just talking about what makes me feel crap about myself won’t work. In fact it usually only adds fuel to the cycle and makes things worse. Plus I’m an expert at trying to stop people from seeing the real me. What makes you think that you’re going to get me to talk?

Trust me, the only way you can help me break the cycle, can help me to feel better about myself is to help me stop obsessing about myself. And the best way to do this? Get me looking outward rather than inward.

Get me involved in activities where I have a chance to help others. Something as simple as being allowed to help my teacher get books out the cupboard to something bigger like getting involved in a community project to clear up a litter-strewn area, or raising money in a charity car wash. Rather than me existing on the badly-behaved edges of society, get me involved. And you will see my self-esteem rise as I receive positive feedback for the good things I do. And over time you will see a transformation as my thinking gradually changes from being obsessed about me, to thinking about others and how to help them. The outward looking ‘helping’ buzz will infect me, colonise me until the bad thoughts get drowned out by good ones.

Give me a voice, and a place to have a voice and I will also thrive. This might need you to rethink some of your youth voice councils. You see, things like school councils are stuffed full of the ‘good kids’, usually with no place for me. But I exist too and I’m entitled to a say. Give me a voice and some responsibility and I will grow faster than you can possibly imagine.

Problem is everybody is desperately trying to shut me up and keep me out of anything with a whiff of responsibility. I can’t be trusted you know. Stupid thing is that if you give me an appropriate forum to have a voice then 9 times out of 10 I will rise to the challenge and the bad behaviour that you are desperately trying to shut up will no longer be an issue. Look at the kids at Uservoice, they were young offenders who were given a voice and see what they did!

Boosting my self-esteem involves helping me to open up and interact in a positive way with the world around me. You can’t teach me self-esteem by endlessly post-morteming my life so far, you have to show me how to acquire it, and things like volunteering are an easy way. Boosting self-esteem is something that you do, not something that you talk about.

Do all this and then you might get me to a place where I have the strength to really deal with my past issues as I will have gained the understanding that my self-worth is not tied to my history. If it was, then doing the self-esteem boosting activities wouldn’t make a difference, but the truth is, they do.

Get me to this place of looking out so that I can get some perspective and see that there is more to my life than what is going on in my head. My life then becomes a place of possibilities, of hope and I am no longer imprisoned inside myself. I can begin to move outwards, onwards and upwards; I am free.

Ever have one of those days, weeks or months that exhaust and frustrate you to your core? We all have them, but how do you stop them from taking over, from stopping you from being effective, from literally ruining your ability to be you at your best?

Whether you work in business, in social care, youth work, stay at home looking after the kids or take trips to the moon, your pathway to sanity, to staying at your best and staying motivated lies in the answer to the question: Why do you do what you do?

Your answer is your mission statement, the reason why you get out of bed in the morning, the reason why you hit the street running rather than languishing under your duvet. It turns you into a powerhouse of activity when things are going well and saves you from the pit of despair when things challenge and frustrate you.

I do what I do (working with challenging young people and helping improve the skills of those working with them) because I care, because I hate to see young people ‘written off’ before they’ve even really started in life. I want kids to see and know love no matter what they may have done or what others may have done to them. I want redemption and healing to be something you see and not just words you hear. I want kids and teens to see a future of possibilities, of happiness, of change, of freedom. I want to make a difference in this world. I want to save water and stop the tears.

And that is what keeps me going, through the foot-sucking mud and the 6 foot deep puddles. This is what gets me out of bed to go to work in the morning. This is what gets me through the sessions when I get told where to go, the sessions when I wonder whether I’m going to get a black eye, the sessions of silence, the yelling parents, the indifferent parents, the visits to Young Offenders Institutes that just smell of human despair and the interminable pointless paperwork that serves no purpose other than ticking a box for government.

My mission statement is my compass in all of this. It sees me through to the other side. It gives me the perseverance I need to be able to finally connect with a difficult young person. It’s what gives me the unabated joy of knowing that each day, no matter how hard it is, I am one step closer to achieving my mission on earth.

And so irrespective of how torrid my session, day, week or month has been I carry on, because beneath all the hard work there is a mission river of pleasure, of joy, of purpose flowing through me. It might not always be palpable as the struggle of the day muffles its roar, but if I stop and listen, it is there. It is always there to tap into, to quench my thirst.

And if I listen, my mission river not only quenches me when thirsty, but it speaks to me and presents me with new opportunities and ideas. It helped me to come to the decision to set up Teenage Whisperer. I figured that I could ultimately reach the most young people by aiming to help every person who works with them to effectively communicate and have the maximum positive impact.

Having a mission statement also helps you to keep goal-oriented. It is a well-known fact that it is those with goals that achieve the most- people who set goals achieve ten times more than those who don’t. This is because they are focused and have clarity about what they are trying to achieve. It means they don’t waste time on activities that are not getting them any closer to their goals, and can focus all their time and effort on those that do.

So do it- write your mission statement. Stick it somewhere you can see it everyday- as your computer background, on your wall, in your diary. Refer to it often. I promise you that it will keep you motivated, focused, goal-oriented and stormproof. Update it as your mission evolves. Those few sentences will have untold power. They will nurture you and make you the best you possibly can be. What’s stopping you?

I’d love to hear your WIDWID ‘Why I Do What I Do’ mission statements, whether you work with young people or not. Enter them in the comment box below, on Twitter with tag #widwid or on Facebook. And please share with others. Reading other people’s mission statements can be a massive source of inspiration. It can spur others on to create their own, overall producing more effective people, which can only be a good thing!

For this week’s post I’m not going to say much because the video below from User Voice says it so much better than I can. It is massively inspiring with some profound truths, not least that many YOT workers and social workers etc. put the cart before the horse and instead of trying to understand and help young offenders as people first, they jump in and try to stop them offending without knowing and understanding them, which will never work.

This echoes the underlying message of so many of my posts: unless you know their story, their pain and their real difficulties as told by them, you will never find the care and compassion they need to see to ever be able to help them make the best decisions for themselves. If you don’t listen to them, they won’t listen to you.

I am inspired by their courage, not only in facing their issues but in meeting with so many people, some very influential to try and change things for everyone. If I had a hat, I would take it off to them.

Anyway, enough of me. Over to them…

Navigating the mindfield of friendships, trying to fit in and still be true to yourself is a process that each and every teenager has to go through and for some it is easier than for others. Peer pressure is something that everyone experiences but it is a particularly difficult issue for teenagers as they are in the middle of establishing ‘who’ they are in absolute terms and relative to other teens. This can shift on a daily basis depending on who they are with and how they feel in that moment. Helping them to understand and cope with this, to ‘listen’ to themselves and to fight negative thoughts about self with positive ones can assist them in making the best choices for themselves.

Available now to download for free is a high quality programme of peer pressure worksheets and activities designed to help teenagers explore these issues and to ensure that they are in control of their relationships. It can be used in one-to-one or group sessions, including in PSHE lessons and can be used to address all sorts of peer pressure issues, such as alcohol / drinking, drugs, smoking and offending. It can also be used preventatively, prior to peer pressure becoming a major issue, as it also explores peer pressure more generally and how to resist it.

The first part of the programme looks at who peers are, what is peer pressure, positive and negative peer pressure, and the role of alcohol and drugs in decision-making before the PROVE YOURSELF method for making the right choices is presented. The power of positive thinking about self is also explored.

The second part of the programme involves watching peer pressure examples in film clips and exploring how the main character could have made better decisions if she had used the PROVE YOURSELF technique.

The programme does not have to be used in its entirety, although this is recommended, and workers can pick and choose the most applicable sections if they are particularly pushed for time.

See below for a taste of how the programme looks:

The free download includes a 14 page young person handout and an 18 page facilitator copy complete with notes, extension activities and more!

I am stuck together with sticky tape. Not your good quality Sellotape or Scotch Tape mind, the cheap stuff that only works some of the time. Put it this way, if I get caught in a shower I’m in big trouble.

So trying to get me to change my life or even little bits of my life is no easy ask. All the pieces interweave and ‘inter-stick’ and if you mess with one, you affect the other pieces. Plus if you rip a piece off I will have a big gaping hole, which can be a bit draughty and can have bad effects on my structural soundness. So I will obviously try to stuff the hole in whatever way I can to keep myself together.

So if you try to help me take away one of my pieces of tape, one of the parts of my life, be it membership of a gang, excessive drinking, drug use, violence, self-harm you have to think about what I will fill that draughty hole with. That bit of tape was put there for a reason in the first place; it met a deep need. So you can’t go ripping it off without thinking about how I will meet that need in another more positive way. If you do just go ahead and rip it off then I will either eventually find the exact same bit of tape and stick it back on or I will find another equally useless unhelpful piece of tape to cover the gap. Nobody can stand a draught, you get me?

Instead, you need to explore that hole that the tape covers and find the best material to fill the hole with, some super-duper super-insulatory material that will feel way better than the crappy old tape used to. Something that will keep the draught out, something that will last and has real structural integrity, will keep me really warm and stable inside, something that will beat the old tape, hands down.

So if my ‘gang tape’ gives me a sense of belonging, gives me a family then before you can even get me to consider giving that up, you have to help me see that there are better groups and ‘families’ to belong to, groups that need me, groups that will feel like family and don’t bully me into doing stuff that I really deep down don’t want to do. Groups where what I do isn’t motivated by fear. Groups where I can get rid of my stress and aggression without a 10 year sentence tag. One idea would be to get me playing in a sports team. That would do all of that and is worth a think.

Or if my ‘drink and drugs tape’ or ‘self-harm tape’ is helping me to block out or just cope with feelings, real bad feelings of what has happened to me and how I’ve been treated, you have to help me get to a point where I don’t feel the need to block out those feelings, where I can accept those feelings and move on, rather than being held prisoner by them. So you need to replace my tape with better, more positive coping strategies. You need to supply me with a kick-ass toolkit of strategies to help me cope, accept and move on from those feelings.

Or if I’m antsy and can blow up in an explosion of anger dead easy, you could explore the needs I am trying to meet that underlie my anger and find alternative ways of getting those needs met. It might be that I get well peeved when people don’t listen to what I’m saying. So it’s about me looking at why people might not be listening and coming up with strategies to help people to listen to me, like choosing my moments, asking politely and expressing my frustrations in a calmer way. At the same time I also need to be dealing with the fact that I do seem to be a tightly wound person and finding ways to release some of that tension through sport or music or whatever works for me. It’s another situation where that kick-ass strategies toolkit is needed to replace my ‘anger tape’.

Or it might be that I’m not actually angry at the people I explode at, but that I’m angry about the way no-one seems to give a crap about me and I deliberately push people away with my explosions cos I’m scared they’re going to reject me like everyone else. In which case getting rid of my anger tape may involve bringing someone into my life, either currently known or new, like a mentor, who can take some time and care. That might even be you. The tape was covering my need to be cared for and fear of rejection and if you can replace that with some solid unconditional care then I won’t need that tape anymore.

It’s simple really. You can’t take away without replacing. And the replacement needs to be good, needs to address my underlying need for me to even consider it. I’m not saying that I’ll be falling over myself to do the swap, even if it does seem quite good. Any change is risky. Quite often there will be some messy negative fall-out from making the change, so it can’t be taken lightly. But if you help me to see that in the long-run life will be better, that I will be better held together than these pieces of tape currently manage, then I might be prepared to take the risk of a small step, a little pull of the tape. I might then gain the courage to keep on pulling and to make the replacement. But it just ain’t gonna happen if there is no half-decent alternative and for that I need you to take the time to understand me, to come up with some interesting ideas and for you to encourage me to make the change. I need you to help me see the possibility of a more solid, stable me that doesn’t need to rely on tape.

This post forms part of the ‘Their Voice’ series.
“Me if I could talk, me if I could express myself, me if I wasn’t so broken. I want to let you in, into
my world, into my thoughts, into the very essence and core of who I really am”.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that you can’t make a teenager do what he or she doesn’t want to do. You can’t make them change. You dig your heels in, they’ll dig theirs in further. You shout at them, they’ll shout louder.

Coercion can get short term results, but as a long term strategy it is fundamentally flawed. It is not only exhausting, but in the end resentment will build and as soon as they sense you no longer have control, they will revert to their preferred behaviour which is the exact opposite of what you want for them.

Respect for one another and real change cannot thrive in a purely coercive environment. We must remember that teens are on the pathway to independence and if you do not recognise and respect this inevitability and deal with them as cogniscent, thinking people with their own opinions, then you are eventually going to come unstuck.

This doesn’t mean that you are powerless, far from it. With the right tools at your disposal you can address their behaviour and help them navigate the difficulties of teen life in a supportive, respectful way. To help a teen change their behaviour, their education or employment circumstances, anything where a change is to be made, the core principle that needs to be recognised is that only they have the power to make their own decisions and as a result only they can decide to change. You can advise, erect signposts, even write what you want them to do in the sky, but only they can decide to listen and engage. In the end, teens will always go their own way; it’s just a matter of how much their way coincides with your way. But it is always up to them.

So you can’t change a person and least of all a teen. What you can do however, is maximise their willingness to listen to you, and even more importantly, maximise their willingness to really dig down and listen to themselves so that they can come to the best decisions for themselves. But how? In my experience the best way to achieve this is to use a Motivational Interviewing approach.

The Spirit of the Method

The Motivational Interviewing method originated in the field of alcohol abuse therapy (Miller & Rollnik 1991) but has now spread far and wide into all areas where change is desired. It is now used in health, social care, criminal justice and education settings. It is a gentle, non-confrontational, positive, collaborative method for working with clients that acknowledges and brings to the fore the fact that they are the best experts on themselves. So rather than sessions being something that is ‘done to’ them, it is something that they are central in shaping, and it starts very much from where they are in terms of readiness to change. Some will be wanting to change but haven’t successfully achieved this, others won’t even feel they want to.

At its core, as its name suggests, is the idea that rather than ‘piling in’ with loads of strategies on how to cope with a problem and ‘dishing out’ advice, it ensures that a client is actually wanting to change first and aims to get them to that point by helping them explore and resolve their ambivalence to change and find their intrinsic motivation for change. In short, it recognises that you can’t change someone who doesn’t want to change.

And even when they do get to the point where they want to change, it is about helping them make personal decisions about how they wish to accomplish that change. Instead of preaching or providing unsolicited advice which they will invariably resist, you evoke and elicit. You draw out of them their reasons for wanting to change and any concerns they might have about it. You provide them with information and resources that might help them change and you elicit from them their opinion on that approach and how they think it could apply to them and what their concerns are about it. You also establish whether they have better ideas about how to deal with their problem.

It’s all about drawing out their motivation from within themselves and engaging them in the process, helping them to visualise where they want to be and how to get there and how to avoid the pitfalls and hurdles on the way. This way they retain their autonomy, they retain control and you collaborate with them in finding the best way to change and the best way to maintain that change. You make it clear that they are the ones with the power to decide and that you are the guiding guest in this process- they own it. It’s about helping them to help themselves by minimising reasons for them to resist the change and maximising their reasons for making the change.

This spirit of Motivational Interviewing is nicely summarised with the acronym ACE: Autonomy (only they have the power to change their lives), Collaboration (work together rather than just dishing out unsolicited advice), and Evocation (evoke and elicit reasons for and concerns about change).

The Practical Application

But how do you actually, practically deliver this Motivational Interviewing style of interaction?

There are four main techniques (OARS) for guiding conversation towards change.
1. Open-ended questions
2. Affirm
3. Reflect
4. Summarise

Open-ended questions draw out far more information from a client than closed questions and cause them to really reflect on their lives, their thoughts and their actions. They also can provide you with valuable information on what might motivate them to change. For example, it is easy to see that the closed question, “Do you think your offending is a problem?” will garner far less reflection and information than the question, “What problems has your offending caused for you?” In addition, closed questions can lead to a client feeling like you are trying to trick them into accepting your way of thinking or a particular treatment. Open questions are far better for increasing internal motivation to change.

Compare this interaction…

Agent: You don’t think your drug use is a problem?
Offender: Not really. When I used to use, I would just do it every once in
a while, and I can’t see how it really hurt anything.
A: How about your kids? Don’t you think that your drug use has a negative impact on them?
O: No, because they didn’t see me use.
A: Even if you don’t use in front of them, aren’t you afraid that it might put them at risk? I mean, how can you care for your kids if you’re high?
O: It doesn’t really affect them. Because when I used to use a neighbor always took care of them. She just kept them overnight.

…with more open questions like these:
A: What concerns do you (does your wife, girlfriend, children etc.) have about your drug use?
■ How has this caused trouble for you?
■ What do you think might happen to your kids if you overdosed?
■ If you did go ahead and finish this class, how would that make things better for you?

(adapted from Walters et al 2007, p.31)

Affirmations build rapport, provide feedback and make positive behaviours more likely. Affirmations can be given for something a client has done, e.g. “Well done for getting here on time”, or can point towards something admirable or interesting about the person, e.g. “You really look out for your sister don’t you?”. They can also increase a client’s appreciation of their own thinking skills. e.g. “How did you know that would work?”. It goes without saying that offering affirmations will build self-esteem, will further strengthen your relationship with your client, will build trust and more open conversations will ensue which will aid you in guiding them towards contemplating and achieving change.

Reflections are statements of what you believe a client is saying (and thinking). They show the client that you are listening to what they are saying and are really trying to understand them. It also helps in actually gaining an accurate understanding of what has been said. This might consist of stripping what has been said down to its bare bones, “So you’re angry” and also paraphrasing what has been said and guessing what would come next if the client had continued to talk, “So your teacher didn’t listen to you… and that made you angry”.

Using reflections gives real momentum to conversations as the client can correct misunderstandings and elaborate further. In addition, hearing what they have said helps clients to process their thoughts more easily. Just like when you might read something aloud to help understand it, so the same goes with reflecting clients statements. By hearing their thoughts repeated aloud it better enables them to make links between what they have said and to notice any discrepancies, which is an important step in beginning to contemplate change.

A key use of reflection is in ‘Rolling-with-resistance’. If your client states something that you disagree with, rather than entering a debate with them where they end up giving arguments against change and being more resistant, you avoid challenging them and ‘roll with the resistance’. To do this you reflect back what they have said and thereby use the client’s momentum to further explore their views.

For example if they state, “I wouldn’t be in this care home if my stupid foster carer hadn’t been such a cow.” you can respond with, “You’re upset with your foster carer” [reflects the emotion] or “The reason you are in the care home is because of your foster carer” [restates their statement]. You aren’t agreeing or disagreeing with them and thereby stalling the conversation. Instead, you are inviting them to say more. In the course of further discussion and with appropriate open-ended questions you can often end up with the client changing their own mind after fully exploring their opinion and the context and noticing any discrepances in their thinking.

Summarising is central to the goal-oriented aspect of Motivational Interviewing. Summarising what has been said is an important tool as it helps to confirm what has been achieved and gives future discussion and action a direction. Summaries highlight the major discussion points, help to clarify any agreed action plan and helps to confirm for both you and the client why they have decided to take action and what the consequences may be of succeeding or not. In addition summarising enables the emphasis on positive steps forward that have been made that you wish to positively reinforce and affirm.

For example:
“OK, so it looks like we’re about out of time. We’ve been covering some of the conditions of your supervision.You thought that the fees would not be a problem, and we’ve agreed on a fee schedule.You thought it would just be easier to get the drug assessment out of the way, but at this point, you have some real mixed feelings about completing the batterer intervention class.You’re aware that it’s one of your conditions, but it’s kind of costly, will take several weeks, and seems like it might be a waste of your time. That’s certainly understandable, since it’s a supervision order. We can revisit that next session if you want to take some time to think about it, and we can also talk about your community service options. I know this is a lot to cover in 20 minutes, but it I do appreciate your willingness to work with me. Is there anything else I need to know?” Walters et al 2007, p.42)

Handing over

The above synopsis of Motivational Interviewing is the absolute bare bones of what it is and I hope that it has piqued your interest if you have not come across it before. I will be covering more elements of this style of interaction in future posts but if you are hungry for more right now I can highly recommend the resources listed at the bottom of this post.

With Motivational Interviewing you need to be very mindful that to get it right requires a lot of practice and a lot of reflection on your sessions, particularly in the early days. It is very easy to forget certain techniques or misapply them, so keeping up your reading in this area is strongly advisable. The Motivational Interviewing website is really good for this.

Motivational Interviewing is a highly rewarding method when working with people when trying to change their lives for the better. It really does work. Two relatively recent reviews of more than 70 Motivational Interviewing outcome studies in different areas strongly supported the effectiveness of this approach (Hettema et al 2005; Rubak et al 2005). I have personally found that it actually makes engaging with the most difficult and challenging young people a lot less hard work than any other method I have used. If you get off your professional power-trip (which we all have from time to time!) and hand over the reigns to teenagers their capacity for change will surprise you. Yes, you do need to guide them, but their astounding inner potential when properly harnessed is what will ultimately change them, not you.

Recommended reading & viewing

Extremely accessible and engaging and shows wide range of applications for the method. Amazon.com has ‘Look Inside’ so you can take a look without purchase. Click on right hand link above.

Walters, S.T. et al (2007) Motivating Offenders to Change: A Guide for Probation & Parole (Washington DC:US Department of Justice)
An excellently written book that is extremely accessible and provides a huge number of practical scripted scenarios and exercises. Cannot recommend highly enough, even if you are not in the criminal justice field. AND it’s free to download!(pdf)

Motivational Interviewing website has many valuable resources and also an 8 minute video on the background to MI.

References

Hettema, J., Steele, J., and Miller, W.R. (2005). Motivational interviewing. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 1(1): 91–111.
Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (1991). Motivational interviewing: Preparing people for change (New York: Guilford Press)
Rubak, S. et al (2005) ‘Motivational interviewing: A systematic review and meta-analysis’, British Journal of General Practice 55(513): 305–312.
Walters, S.T. et al (2007) Motivating Offenders to Change: A Guide for Probation & Parole (Washington DC:US Department of Justice)

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I sit on my backside. I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want to work. I don’t want to talk to anyone. The world can just f*** off. I’m just fine as I am, doing what I do, which is, well… nothing.

Doing nothing, not trying anything, not talking to anyone except my mates really, is the best thing I can do for myself. You see, it’s safe. REAL safe.

As far as ‘doing’ goes I might immerse myself in drinking or taking drugs or getting a buzz from nicking cars or even just gaming 24-7. Anything that involves having a damn good time and sod the consequences. I’ll do anything that helps me to stop feeling.

And I’ll do anything that helps me avoid ‘doing’ anything that puts me at REAL risk- the risk of failing if I try something, the risk of being rejected if I put myself out there and try and build relationships, the risk of drowning if I face the fact that actually deep-down I feel pretty crappy about life and try and change. The risks that you professionals tell me I expose myself to by drinking, or driving stolen cars, or having unprotected sex with anyone who wants some is nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the risk rating I apply to exposing myself to failure. Failure from trying to build relationships, getting educated or getting a job, or trying to fix my life. That’s the shit scary stuff for me. I’ve got my fingers hellishly burnt trying to ‘do stuff’ before. If you want me to stick my hands back in the fire then you can go take a long walk off a short cliff. It ain’t happening.

When I’m in this scared, ‘I’m not going to try a sodding thing’ place I can be an absolute nightmare to work with. I’ll either be a mouthy obnoxious so-and-so or I’ll say nothing. You might as well be working with a cardboard cutout of me for all the real interaction you are going to get. I will make you think you are THE most annoying or boring person in the entire universe. You will get to the point where you think there is little point really trying with me… I’m a lost cause.

But please don’t give up on me. I might look like I’m bored; I might look like I don’t give a crap about what you have to say, and probably at first I won’t, but if you stick at it the barriers will fall. You see, if you give up on me and quit trying, then you are only showing me that giving up and not trying is okay. You will never solve my inaction and apathy by being inactive and apathetic yourself. It will be tiring, you will need to grit your teeth, but you HAVE to keep on chipping away at me. It will bring results if you just keep on trying.

Even though I will probably treat you as if you aren’t human, it is your humanness, and your humanity towards me that will ultimately cause the barriers to fall. If you show me warmth and care, then I will come to realise that maybe it is worth taking a risk on you and trying to build some sort of relationship with you.

If I see you really giving of yourself in your pursuit to connect with me, then I will be more inclined to give of myself and build my half of the bridge. This doesn’t mean you have to cross any professional boundaries, just stuff like asking what I did at the weekend and saying what you did. You don’t have to go into personal details about what you did, but even stuff like, ‘well I went shopping’ or ‘I went and played footie with my mates on Sunday. Our team was stuffed’. Anything that shows you are a normal human being. That you aren’t just Mr or Mrs Social Worker, or Mr & Mrs Teacher etc.

And don’t feel guilty about just talking with me at first. Don’t dive in with worksheets and programmes to address my issues. If there’s no real interaction going on with simple stuff like ‘hello, how are you?’ then there is little chance that you will achieve anything when talking about anger or peer pressure, whatever.

Once I’ve taken the risk on building some sort of a relationship with you, then I will have taken the first step in positive risk- taking. I’ll then listen to you more, respect you more and will be so much more likely to feel safe enough to give stuff like going to college or getting a job a go. I’ll be more likely to open up and talk about stuff that is bothering me. And once I get the positive feedback from trying different stuff from usual then I will be less reliant on old patterns of behaviour. I will start to build a life, a proper life rather than pretending to live, either sitting on my backside or getting involved in dodgy stuff.

Help me to take the first step in positive risk-taking and help me to take a risk on you. Relationship is the key to the rest. If you haven’t got that then you ain’t got nothing.

As much as we may wish to deny the reality, Christmas will soon be upon us. Our inboxes fill up with Christmas marketing emails, catalogues come in the post and the shops fill up with decorations. While the organisation involved in ‘doing’ Christmas can seem overwhelming, for the majority of us, the pleasure, the fun and the social occasion that is Christmas usually outweigh any organisational headaches beforehand. We cope with the logistics by focussing on the positives and usually that involves talking about it with friends, asking how the Christmas shopping is going or asking where and who we are spending it with (if not working that is)! Our spirits are lifted and we increasingly look forward to it.

However, in our personal excitement we can easily forget that for many, Christmas is the worst time of year. Rather than Jingle Bells, it is Jingle Hell. It is when the contrast for teens (and others) between what life is and what they want it to be becomes all too stark. When financial disparities between the haves and the have-nots is displayed in full technicolour; when there is no expectation of a gift because there is no expectation of care; when festive cheer equates to festive beatings for themselves or for family members¹; when cuddling up round a roaring fire with family members is a dream conjured up from the cold of a park bench or underpass², or the loneliness of a children’s home. ³

So when we meet with young people in the run up to Christmas we need to be really careful about our topics of social chat. Of course you are not going to be able to completely avoid the topic of Christmas, but I would suggest that you don’t start mentioning it too soon; it will only prolong the pain for those who hurt at this time.

When you do mention Christmas, make sure you are light-footed and not stomping around in Santa-weight boots. Don’t make throw away comments like, “ah, it’s nearly Christmas. Exciting isn’t it?”. “Well no actually you idiot”, is bound to be the verbal or non-verbal response if Christmas is a difficult time. You will do some serious damage to your working relationship this way.

Instead tread carefully and start from the position of assuming that Christmas is difficult for them until you learn otherwise. So you could say something ambiguous along the lines of “All this Christmas stuff is pretty mad isn’t it?”. You will probably find that they will interpret that statement relative to their own experiences. If Christmas involves Dad getting drunk as a skunk and being violent, then ‘mad’ will equal ‘angry’ and they might think you are referring to this. If on the other hand, Christmas is an okay time for them then they might think you mean that the Christmas shopping crowds are crazy. If they hate that everyone seems to get presents but them, then they will probably respond by saying how exchanging presents is stupid.

If you are sensitive about how you approach the subject, the run up to Christmas can sometimes actually lead you to getting crumbs of information as to what goes on in their personal lives that can be explored more deeply, either at the time they are mentioned or later if more appropriate. Christmas is a mental bookmark for most people. We all remember that big argument that Mum had with Auntie Liz, or when the turkey was burned or the Christmas tree fell down etc etc. So too for those with painful Christmas memories. Everything about the festivities can bring back those memories as they act as visual and auditory triggers. Something as simple as hearing a common Christmas song can transport someone back to a difficult time such as when they watched their mother be beaten by their father.

And so too comes a warning. In my experience Christmas can be a time when teens who otherwise seem to be doing okay, completely lose the plot because of those memory triggers. They don’t know how to cope with the surge of emotions, and often they do not consciously realise that this surge of emotions is because of the association of something to do with Christmas and a painful suppressed memory. So if this happens, it could well be worth exploring with them what Christmas was like for them.

Some teens take a more pre-meditated approach to their behaviour in the run up to Christmas. Some teens will cope with “everyone else” getting presents and not them, by going on a Christmas shoplifting spree. In their minds, this is only fair. I have also known some characters who were being supervised on community supervision court orders to go out on a spree of criminal activity just before Christmas to try and ensure they were imprisoned over the Christmas period. That is how bad Christmas at home (or in a care home etc) can be for young people. Again, if you are to help them then finding out what Christmas means to them is an important fact-finding mission and can help you to intervene appropriately.

And while you obviously have to be sensitive to cultural differences and that some teens do not come from Christmas-celebrating cultures, I would add an important caveat. While some teens’ families do not celebrate Christmas, you cannot escape the fact that for the majority, it is Christmas time. So Christmas may be difficult for them because they feel they miss out on the family bonding that can occur because their family doesn’t celebrate, or that they feel like they don’t fit in. Or parents might behave differently around Christmas because they struggle and worry about how their British born children are coping with their dual cultural identities, or they might start becoming obsessed with their religious cultural heritage to try and counteract the effects of Christmas. Just ignoring Christmas as an event is more culturally insensitive than acknowledging it, as it makes out that they live in a sealed box where the majority culture does not affect them. Again, Christmas in this context can become an interesting starting point for exploring teen’s day-to-day lives, including their cultures.

All in all, Christmas needs to be approached with care. It can provide opportunities for exploration as well as being a highly volatile chemical cocktail that can wreak some messy negative results, at least in the short-term. So just be sensitive, tread carefully and if you are so inclined, spread some festive cheer yourself by sharing in some Christmas ritual like eating far too much chocolate. Afterall, sadly this might be all the Christmas cheer they get to see this year.

Notes
1. US Domestic Violence agencies report a 30 percent increase in calls over the Christmas holidays. Increased financial pressure, increased alcohol intake & greater time spent at home during the Christmas period are cited contributory factors.

In 75% to 90% of incidents of domestic violence, children are in the same
or the next room.
The link between child physical abuse and domestic violence is high, with
estimates ranging between 30% to 66% depending upon the study. (Women’s Aid)

2. 28% of children in care in the UK are placed in children’s homes (Who Cares? Trust). Some will be allowed to visit a family member at Christmas, increasing the sense of abandonment in those left behind.

3. On the basis of those accessing support services, it was estimated that between 2006 and 2007 in the UK, 43,075 young people aged betwen 16 and 24 experienced homelessness. (Joseph Rowntree Foundation)

I’m like a toddler. I have tantrums like a toddler; I swing from ecstatically excited to belligerently uncooperative depending on how the mood takes me. The crux of it is that just like a toddler I haven’t learned self-control. Yes I might be more complex than a toddler in many ways, but hold onto this base fact, it can offer many clues on how you should deal with me.

Just when solving a seemingly intractable problem, a scientist returns to base principles and works on from there, so too should anyone working with a teen like me. And what is the first thing that any toddler ‘manual’ will tell you in dealing with an erratic tot? Boundaries, strong and true, consistent and unshakeable.

Yes I will probably hurl myself at a lot of your boundaries like a battering ram at the castle gates or I will nonchalantly try to breach them by pretending to be an uncaring passer-by who then quietly trys to dig a hole under the surrounding walls. I do not like boundaries, and particularly the ones that I think are stupid, which pretty much means all of them. I’ve got on just fine ignoring boundaries so far, so why should I start paying attention to them now?

Well I’ll tell you why. I need boundaries to know that you care. If there aren’t any consistent boundaries, I know you don’t give a shit. People in my life have never really enforced any boundaries consistently, so I knew that they didn’t care. I just did what the hell I wanted. It was a buzz, but it didn’t give me what I really needed or wanted- a sense of security, a sense of knowing what to expect, a sense of consistent care. Sometimes they’d be all police-enforcer and they’d go mental, next time they wouldn’t really take any notice. So all in all the impression that I got was that they were unpredictable and that they only cared about my behaviour when it was bothering them, not because my behaviour needed to be changed for my benefit. Basically, as I said, they didn’t really care for me.

So the strength and consistency of your boundaries shows me the strength and consistency of your care for me. If you spell out clear boundaries and expectations to me and enforce them consistently, I will eventually warm to you because I will feel secure. This won’t be an easy path, let me warn you. I will fight against any boundaries- that’s what I’ve always done and while it usually gets me my own way in the short term it doesn’t give me what I really need. It will take me a while to work this out and I will throw myself at the boundaries you set, I will try and break them down. Or I will try and undermine them by subtly digging under them. But by you standing strong and not giving in I will come to realise that you care- the conclusion I never got to with anyone else who put up half-baked crappy boundaries that fell with the slightest push.

So really instead of boundary enforcement being a stick matter, it becomes a carrot one. As soon as I feel positive emotions I desperately need and desire then hell, I will start to pay attention! I will have security and a sense of control because I will know what to expect if I mess up. I will at least subconsciously feel that in some way you care, and oh how I crave that.

If you don’t enforce your boundaries consistently it won’t be just be me that takes the mick out of them, you will be just as bad. So if you have a boundary I need to know what the consequence will be if I don’t adhere to it. Actions have consequences- another lesson for toddlers that I need to learn too. You don’t need to be overly dramatic in your enforcing, that just turns me right off. I’m used to people doing that and it will only make me angry and make things twenty times worse. Just cool and calmly explain to me when I’ve overstepped the line, why you have to enforce the boundary, remind me of the consequence if previously explained to me and make it clear that this is how it will be. Make it clear that you hope it won’t happen again. This shows me you see a future in our relationship and that my one screw up doesn’t mean it is all ruined. Afterall, just like a toddler it will probably take a little while for me to learn.

I really can’t argue with you when you’ve been mega-clear and mega-calm. Even if I do erupt at the time, I will calm down and will eventually accept that you are being fair and just, and heck, I need some of that. I will come to respect your boundaries and you.

Whatever you do, don’t be overly punitive in how you deal with me. If the consequence does not match up to the action then I will just view the whole thing as unfair and will stick my fingers up at it, no matter what the consequences might be. You see, you can’t socially ostracise someone into behaving when they are already socially ostracised. It’s like threatening to chop a snake’s hands off for stealing. It just makes no sense.

Fair enough, you might work in a system, like the youth justice system that has legal boundaries and court imposed consequences. You must impose the boundaries of our supervision sessions even if you think that the consequence of breaching me from my court order may be over-the-top. You can use your influence though, and if you think that there is a fair and just method of dealing with me then scoot yourself down to court and tell them so, or put it in your court report. At least I will then know that you wanted what was fair for me, even if what the court imposes is not. This way by enforcing the boundary you’ll teach me how in society that you have to respect the law and abide by the decisions of the courts whether you agree with them or not, and at the same time show me that even though I’ve stuffed up, that our working relationship hasn’t been flushed down the pan. The fact that you have tried to use your influence in helping the courts come to a fair decision about the consequences of my actions shows that you care.

This is all I want in the world. To know that someone actually cares what happens to me. And the best way I know to test how much you care, is to test your boundaries. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t bother to enforce the boundaries consistently. If you didn’t care then you wouldn’t go to the effort of thinking of suitable consequences for breaching those boundaries.

Once I know you care, then I will begin to tow the line with your boundaries. I will learn the self-control needed for me to get positive attention for living within the boundaries rather than getting the negative attention for living outside the boundaries. This is one of the biggest life lessons you can teach me and will really help me get on with the world and its systems and restrictions rather than constantly trying to blow them up with my volatile behaviour. I’m really quite simple and straightforward in many ways. If I can see the benefit of doing something, then I will.

So just like a toddler you can mould my behaviour with the food I really want and need- in my case the carrot of care. Try feeding me some, I promise I will ask for more.