Exciting developments around motivational interviewing

Over the past six months the group of us MINTees (Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers members) from Australasia have been busy on several projects to bring greater awareness and accessibility of motivational interviewing (MI) to the region. Over the next 12 months we will be bringing opportunities that will support workers to develop competency in MI.

The first is the development of a regional chapter of MINT. This group will be the organising system for a range of MI related activities across the Oceania region. One of the philosophies inherent in being a MINT member is to share MI ideas with generosity to those who work with others to bring about change.

Secondly we have been granted permission to run a regional TNT (Training for Network Trainers). This is the pathway for those with good competency in motivational interviewing who want to take the next step in their development to acquire skills of passing practice ideas along. The annual TNT is normally held in either the USA or Europe and as we know Oceania is a long way from both these destinations, often making it impossible for people in the region to attend. This training will be held in August 2015 in either Melbourne or the Gold Coast. We are incredibly fortunate to have Terri Moyer as one of the lead trainers on this TNT.

We are also planning to run a MITI 4 (Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity Scale) which is a behavioural coding system that provides an answer to the question of how well are people practicing MI. The MITI also yields feedback that can be used to increase clinical skill in the practice of motivational interviewing. The MITI is intended to be used: 1) as a treatment integrity measure for clinical trials of motivational interviewing and 2) as a means of providing structured, formal feedback about ways to improve practice in non-research settings. This training will run concurrently alongside the TNT.

Given that we will have new MINTees as well as existing MINT members, we are also keen to run a one day conference focusing upon new innovation in the motivational interviewing space. This will follow the tradition of former the International Symposium on Motivational Interviewing (ISMI) that have been held in Auckland and Melbourne bi-annually.

The final area is the development of a website that will have information about MI and initiatives within our region. We have a goal of having this live around mid-October. We will also be producing a six monthly e-journal around innovation in MI.

As you can see there is a lot of activity happening within our region to promote motivational interviewing as an important approach to supporting people to support people in change.

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