Two essential skills in developing competency in MI are (1) learning to "listen up" for the language of change that suggests clients are becoming more ready for commitment and action planning, and (2) learning how to elicit such language from clients. "Change Talk" is the "gold nugget" for which all the "mining" in MI is designed. It is the "pay dirt" and the "pay off" for all the hard work of using skillful MI to strategically guide clients in the direction of a target behaviour. Change Talk is the the fuel that drives willingness to tap into more concrete action planning and goal setting. Without the ability to recognize change talk and "work with it" as a way to harness motivation, there is a tendency to simply use MI skills to be a great listener, and to develop great rapport with clients, but with no resulting behaviour change!

     This 2 day skill-based workshop is designd to  help participants

(a) recognize the language of change when it manifests in an MI session,

(b) elicit change talk from clients when it is not evolving more naturally, and

(c) what the do with it when it manifests in the MI conversation