Category Archives: What Ken thinks

9 things a trusted friend won’t tell you

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Trusted friends

I have been thinking recently about a dear friend of mine who died a while back. It was the anniversary of his death recently and at this time of the year I take time to really appreciate the type of friend he was and how lucky I was to have him in my life. He was a mentor to me. He encouraged me to be more than I could be, to strive for more out of life, and to keep the passion alive for things I do in my life. I realised that he taught me a lot about what it means to be a friend. He taught me the following nine things that a trusted friend won’t tell you.

  1. You are always right, you know you are
  2. The other person (often a partner) is always to blame
  3. Life just treats you unfairly, life is unfair anyway
  4. The other person deserved what they got
  5. Your lifestyle is just fine
  6. Alcohol, drugs and cigarettes won’t harm you
  7. Live life on the edge and not worry about tomorrow
  8. Don’t get too committed to relationships, they only end in pain
  9. Don’t let people see your vulnerable side, they will take advantage of you

If this is what a trusted friend wont tell, what will they tell you? A trusted friend is someone who is prepared to have those tough conversations with us. Someone who is prepared to level with us regarding our good and bad behaviour. Someone that despite how we sometimes behave is willing to stand by us and nurture us in the direction of change, of doing what is right. Someone who is prepared to ‘agree to disagree’ with us while at the same time working hard to maintain our relationship. Someone who is prepared to be out in the cold for a while, knowing that if we are big enough we will invite them back into our lives and apologise for our behaviour. So a good friend would tell you.

  1. You are always sometimes right, you just have to admit when you are wrong and stop being just stubborn
  2. The other person (often a partner) is always sometimes to blame but have a real hard look at your own behaviour first before seeking blame in other places
  3. Life just treats you unfairly as life treats you, at times it will feel unfair and other times you will feel blessed – ride the wave and look for both sides
  4. The other person deserved what they got deserves to be treated with respect and dignity no matter the difference – hard to do but this is the heart of integrity
  5. Your lifestyle is just fine requires constant readjustment as we move through life’s developmental stages
  6. Alcohol, drug use and cigarettes won’t will harm you if they are not carefully managed. Know when to say ‘no’ over what to take and know when to say I have had enough
  7. Live life on the edge to it’s fullest, take calculated risks and be aware of the impact of your risk taking upon those who care about you. Definitely not worry about tomorrow as it is certainly coming to a place near you soon
  8. Don’t get too committed to relationships, they only ends in pain Understand your reluctance to commit and work with it, so that you can find connection, nurturance and love in your life
  9. Don’t let trusted people see your vulnerable side, they will take advantage of you it will allow them to provide you with support at those tough times

So as you can see, a trusted friend is like having gold in the bank. You will be rich beyond your means as a friend will travel with you, look out for you, and be there for you when you need them. How are you at the art of  being a trusted friend. Love to hear your ideas.

From Ken’s Desk April 2012

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It is amazing that we are now at the end of the first quarter of 2012. Since we came back from the Christmas holidays and summer break our HMA training team has:

  • delivered 102 days of in-room training
  • taken 75 flights to destinations as far away as Singapore and Perth, from Auckland to Invercargill
  • sponsored and run the second International Symposium on Motivational Interviewing in Auckland during March
  • delivered the 10 week criminogenic programme as part of intervention for high risk youth offenders at Te Puna Wai
  • started to deliver our short course programme for 2012 (www.hma.co.nz/workshops)
  • HMA staff have also been heavily involved in leading the development of a new motivational interviewing training DVD with will be available around June 2012
  • Invested a huge amount of behind-the-scenes work on our learning platform where people will be able to access online learning using self-paced materials.

So you can imagine we all enjoyed a really good break over Easter. This of course coincided in New Zealand with school holidays which means a great time for connecting up and spending quality time. We always recognise that in order to maintain such a pace of activity that there are a team of people who stand behind us and allow this to occur. Thanks to our families for freeing us to make the contribution in the public world that we do.

The end of the first quarter also sees three changes to our team. Mark Tisdall who has been an associate with HMA for the past 10 years has taken a fixed term appointment with Department of Corrections doing development work. Julie Pullman is the other change to the team, she is now working as a regional learning and development adviser for Corrections. It is always nice to know that the quality of our people are sought after by the systems that we consult with. We thank them both for a wonderful contribution to our team. We also welcome Brinley McIntosh to our team as our intern. Brinley is completing the postgraduate Diploma in Child and Family at University of Canterbury and has been working alongside Matt running the high risk youth offenders programme at Te Puna Wai.

Some of you may be aware that I have started writing a regular blog on both contemporary issues and training ideas. We have recognised for some time that we have a huge amount of information and ideas around clinical practice that we know are valuable and worth sharing with a wider audience. You can sign up to our blog and contribute your own ideas as well. We are keen to make this a collaborative learning event. We have also started work on a practice book around contemporary interventions around family violence. Rather than a chapter book which we have published several of over the past few years, this one will be a combination of contemporary theory and practice ideas that promote family safety. It will be very hands-on and full of practical intervention ideas that workers will be able to utilise.

We have  finally got resolution around the demolition of our building in Cashel Street, Christchurch. For some of you who don’t know the back story around the drama, we have experienced a series of major earthquakes to Christchurch over the past 12 months and we have been in negotiation with the insurers to settle our claim. Demolition begins on 8 April 2012 and should be completed within a three month period. Once that is completed we will be in a position to know what financial losses we are likely to have sustained. I must say that this extraordinary event has certainly tested my endurance and capacity for creative solutions.

 

Integrated Practice Framework – NZ Department of Corrections

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Just under three years ago a consortium of HMA and Able Training began work on training design for the rollout of the integrated practice framework. This has been one of the biggest changes to practice for the New Zealand community probation service for 10 years. It brings to life is the core purpose of the organisation which is to: contribute to safer communities, hold offenders to account and manage them to:

  • comply with the requirements of their sentence or order
  • reduce their likelihood of re-offending
  • minimise the risk of harm they present to others.

These three separate and interlinked elements to the CPS purpose each have overall intermediate outcomes. For a more direct link between the purpose and the way service delivery should be designed, it is useful to describe the elements and the outcomes as they relate both to an offender and to a probation officer. It must be clear to the offender what the probation officer is trying to achieve and how the probation officer’s actions affect the expectations of what the offender will achieve.

One of the problems with the earlier structure was that was very highly manualised and didn’t provide enough structural supports for assessment and responses to the changing nature of dynamic risk. What transpired was that rather than taking an offender centric response, processes were much more focused around managing the sentence rather than managing the offender.

The key components of the proposed Integrated Practice Framework (IPF) include the following components.

  • Mandatory Standards set the bottom line for all probation officers about what they need to do in managing offenders on each sentence/order.  They must be followed each and every time for every offender.  Mandatory standards typically address legislative requirements including sentence/order compliance and integrity.
  • Supported Decision Framework. The second part of the IPF is the Supported Decision Framework (SDF) which: Guides staff in using the tools and information available to exercise their professional judgement to ensure they take the right action, with the right offender, at the right time.
  • Knowledge Bank. The third part of the IPF is the Knowledge Bank which provides staff with relevant information such as research and case studies, and other resources to enrich their understanding of the work they are doing.

The new integrated practice framework is designed to focus staff on doing the right thing, at the right time, with the right offender.  It is clear about what actions are mandatory and provides support to staff to make sound professional judgments and decisions. The outcomes anticipated from this change to practice will focus on achieving better outcomes with offenders and their families/whānau that ultimately improve public safety and contribute to safer communities.

The Integrated Practice Framework to summarise, at the heart of the change is a repositioning away from only managing sentences/orders (compliance) to also focusing on an offender’s likelihood of reoffending and their risk of harm to others.

Ensuring sentence integrity remains critical, by significantly increasing the focus on managing offenders according to the risk they present – in particular their likelihood of reoffending and their risk of harm to others. Ensuring sentence integrity remains critical, hence focusing on our legislative responsibilities around holding the offender to account for their sentence and ensuring they comply with their sentence/order and ensuring actions and mitigations to reduce the likelihood of reoffending and minimise risk of harm to others.

Also critical is ensuring resources are more efficiently and effectively targeted.  This means that once the mandatory standards are met, staff will focus time, energy and effort on offenders who present a higher likelihood of reoffending and/or risk of harm to others.

The change also requires a comprehensive redesign for the supporting policies, systems and tools that assist probation staff to do their jobs.  Probation officers will know and manage the bottom line and move away from simply following strict procedures to making supported decisions for individual offenders using their professional judgement.

Managers will shift focus from ensuring staff only follow procedures to supporting them day-to-day to ensure the mandatory standards are met, that their focus is on offenders presenting a higher risk and to make good quality judgements and decisions. Managers will assist with making decisions on actions to mitigate likelihood of reoffending and harm to others.

So as you can see a significant shift in the nature of the practice. We have been pleased to be able to contribute to the train design for all of the sentence types and as well as deliver training in each of the areas. Over the course of this project we have delivered training around sentence types including:

  • parole
  • home detention and post detention conditions
  • supervision
  • intensive supervision
  • provision of advice to courts
  • community work
  • community detention

In all our HMA team have delivered 450 design days and 366 training days on this project. I think our work is now done and it is now the challenge for the internal systems within Community Probation Service to ensure the ideas bed down and that the integrity of the design is maintained.

 

The six cornerstones of motivation

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What are the key drivers

Last week HMA hosted the International Symposium on Motivational Interviewing: Beyond an Effect Size: Innovations in Thinking & Practice in Auckland, New Zealand. Besides being a rich opportunity to share contemporary practice around motivational interviewing, it was a timely reminder of the very essence of what motivation is. Without motivation we generally do not embark upon the journey of exploring new ideas and behaviours. It therefore felt timely to go back to basics and reflect upon the cornerstones of motivation. For those of us who work in the area of change with others there is little doubt that understanding these concepts is central to work.

  1. Cornerstone one – motivation is not fixed – all of us know that motivation fluctuates hugely, sometimes from minute to minute, hour to hour, and day to day. It can increase or decrease based on principles of human behaviour such as reinforcement theory. Most of us do not work on high-end altruism when deciding on behaviour, but more often in terms of what’s in it for me or to be fair, what’s in it for those close to me. If we can see some benefit to changing behaviour, then motivation will increase. In my own field of practice of family violence intervention and offenders intervention work we know that people are often motivated when external sanctions increase, or when they reach a certain level of maturity and start to see the bigger picture. Evidence from the general corrections field about desistance to crime includes the following ideas: life re-evaluation (around age 39), burn-out from the on-going consequences of behaviour, and fear of harm to themselves. Therefore the age of presentation may be a critical factor in motivation or responsivity to change. This also fits with life re-evaluation which can start around the mid to late 30′s.
  2. Cornerstone two – motivation is also a matter of probabilities – how likely is a person to initiate or persist in a particular action? What does this mean? The question can be posed in a slightly different way. ‘Under what conditions is a person likely to persist with change and truly deal with behaviours?’ This in my view goes back to the starting place of what is brought into the room.
  3. Cornerstone three – motivation is an interpersonal phenomenon – this in where the skills of motivational interviewing are most evident. A key aspect of MI work draws from relational theory and what occurs within the context of the relationship between the worker and the person seeking help. All of us who work in the human services know that rapport and engagement are the cornerstones of effective practice. We are asking people to trust us with their personal worlds, to respect them, to understand them, and to help them make sense of the situation they are in. As we all know trust is not given lightly and can be easily eroded.
  4. Cornerstone four – motivation is generally specific to a course of action. A person may be unmotivated to one type of change, but quite ready for another. For example they may be prepared to attend a programme in order to explore abusive behaviour, but unwilling to work on drinking or drug taking behaviour, even if this is indicated as an aspect of an abusive pattern. What are you motivated for and what not? I am highly motivated to keeping the kitchen bench tidy, but less motivated to get out and exercise.
  5. Cornerstone five – intrinsic motivation is the way to go. We know that if we make the decision to change, then it has a better chance of being successful, than if others decide for us. While motivation can be both intrinsic as well as extrinsic, the former will be longer lasting. This is where attending to change talk becomes important in MI work. Listening, responding and strengthening a person’s commitment to change for their own reasons has proven to be more enduring over time. In a later blog I will explore how we can enhance motivation by joining the hopes of the person with those of his/her family and friends/social network.
  6. Cornerstone six – Intrinsic motivation is more readily achieved by eliciting it rather than telling. Very few of us respond to being told what to do. In fact we can take on the righting reflex and head in the other direction. The power of self-talk (We believe what we hear ourselves saying) can assist change. For example, inviting a person to change their narrative about ‘having to attend programmes’ to ‘approach motivation’, where they argue for themselves the benefits of change (attending a programme may be one solution), can start to create movement in the direction of change.

To test this theory try the following exercise with a friend or family member. Elicit as many good reasons (at least twenty) for you as an individual not to drink and drive (You can pick a different topic if you want).  Take no more than 5 minutes so get the working fast. After you have finished answer the following process questions:

  • What were you aware of?
  • What did you notice happened in your thinking?
  • What is your position around drink driving now?

If you are like most of the people that we run this exercise with, you will have shifted in your position. Even if you had already taken a firm position around the issue (drinking and driving or something else) then you will become even more confirmed in that position. Reinforcing change-talk in the direction of change moves us along that continuum and builds motivation for engaging, working with or maintaining change.

 

 

 

Motivational interviewing – the tension points

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Finding the rub

Attending the International Symposium on Motivational Interviewing: Beyond an Effect Size: Innovations in Thinking & Practice, was such a stimulating experience that it got me thinking about where MI sits in relation to other approaches. Is MI an approach out there all by itself? Is MI the precursor to others things? Is there a right way to do MI and are those of us that bring into play other approaches (narrative, strength-based, cognitive behavioural theory, mindfulness) fudging it and undermining the integrity of the key ideas. At the heart of MI are reflection, noticing, and elicitation. MI is about a way of being with people that recognises their autonomy, self-directedness, and inherent strength. The approach is based in the humanist traditions of collaboration, evocation, compassion and genuineness.

It is the edges where theory and approach rub up against each other in practice that is really interesting. The friction caused leads us to think about, debate and clarify theory as well as practice.

In my view the following six areas where the interface does not sit easily are:

  1. When MI is used as an entrée to interventions – one of the debates is around what are we motivating people for? Is it for an overall aspect of a change within a person’s life (e.g. a healthy lifestyle – an overall change), to change an aspect (e.g. drinking) or to create a willingness to engage in another piece of work (e.g. attend an intervention). Do we therefore do MI then forget about it when we have engaged the person? The latter would clearly work against the spirit of MI which is as much about an approach to the work, as a technique.
  2. Maintaining integrity of the MI principles – any approach can be watered down and lose its integrity. As people move further away from the people who developed the ideas, don’t have feedback on the correct implementation of the ideas, and are not supported to maintain best practice, then slippage in integrity occurs.
  3. Who sets the direction?  MI is a directional process that assists the person to move through the change process toward a goal. It is encouraging evocation of beliefs and ideas that are supportive of change (change talk), a new direction, or new set of behaviour. One of the challenges in MI is around the degree of self-directedness versus other-directedness. Who sets the direction and focus of the change? At times many of us are required to hold a line around the focus. For example, I need to work with men who are abusive in their relationships and work from within the frame of family safety. Sometimes the clients’ goals can be different from the goals of others. A partner might want a man to develop a separated and caring relationship with their children. He might want to be back in the relationship. Where does MI come into play is shaping for change and where do we have to holding the line when the direction may appear to diverge.
  4. New and older kids on the block – where does MI and other approaches fit. It takes time to work through how different approaches fit with each other. Approaches have their own history, ideas, basis and bias. Taking the time to carefully consider ‘added versus detracted value’ is a task that I don’t see enough reflection around.
  5. What happens with limited time and resources? One of the debates is whether or not MI is a luxury in terms of time and resources. I would argue that we waste significant time on working ‘on’ people rather than working ‘with’ people. We are asking people to trust us with their inner-most thinking. This is something that is not our right to expect by the nature of our position but needs to be gained through our behaviour.
  6. Finding room for the views of others – is motivation all about individual intrinsic motivation? (Another blog is coming around this issue). How much is our own motivation a product of the motivation of others? Accountability-based approaches work on the practice of ensuring that the views of others are incorporated within the conversation. How much does current MI practice reflect an individual-centric rather than family-centric approach? These are questions that really interest me in particular coming from a narrative tradition.

As a result of attending the ISMI symposium I am now committed to exploring these ideas in much greater depth. I am looking forward to conversations around these issues with you and others. What do you think? Love to hear.

 

Making the most of the time we have

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Making things count

Remember Robin Williams in the film ‘Dead Poets Society’. Robin Williams plays a teacher with a great thirst for life who encourages his student through the rallying cry “carpe diem” or “seize the day”.  He invites his students to question, find their own truths, and live as if each moment counts. I don’t know about you but I find myself slipping into bad habits and wasting what precious time I do have.

This is not a blog on time management – there are heaps of those already out there. While techniques are important, I have discovered it is about what spins my wheels that keeps me on track. It doesn’t matter how many great time management ideas there are, without it making sense at a personal level, forget it. Let’s face it, if we don’t connect with the ideas/values/ideals behind a behaviour, then it just isn’t going to happen.

How do you decide how to use time and achieve that balance. I really struggle with getting the balance right. In fact this might be my life’s work. Ask my partner who has lived with my tendency to overwork. I suspect I am not alone in trying to keep my career on track, my relationships with my partner in shape (my own body in shape as well), keeping up with the ever changing lives of our children, and of course then there are wider family and friends.

I have found the four following ideas as good markers for making the time I have count. I live by the notion that I want to be passionate in my life and work, make a difference and maintain integrity throughout the process.

  1. Living according to your values – do you ever have the feeling that you are doing things that don’t fit with your values and they rub. I don’t know about you, but I feel I am losing a part of myself in the process when I go against my better judgement.
  2. Make every action and decision count – decisions often have long-term implications. Taking the time to think about the short, medium and long-term impact of decisions. It is often easier to give into the immediate pleasure of avoidance rather than doing activities for a longer-term reward.
  3. Don’t be too quick to judge - I met someone the other day in a training event. Taking the time to connect turned into a fascinating (and long) conversation. What a rich story of work, separation, growing children, changing careers. What turned out to be a simple conversation lead on to a dinner together where the conversation continued to flow.
  4. What is your legacy? – what is it that you want to leave behind. I know as I get older this becomes a more interesting reflection. What is it I will be remembered for? Have I left the place better or worse for having been here?
  5. Use time wisely – I am on the road a lot with my job. You can imagine that at the end of a long day in the training room that it is very tempting to sit down and blob in front of the TV in my motel or hotel room. I admit I still do this from time to time. I am starting to plan for an interesting activity at the end of each day. The other day I was able to borrow a bicycle from the motel that I was training at and went on a long bike ride.

What do you do to keep your wheels spinning and making the most of the time you have?  Love to hear your thoughts.

Can men who use abusive practices really change?

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Can men who are abusive really change?

Don has been struggling with abusive behaviour all of his life. He was adopted at birth into a family who treated him badly.In this family he saw and experienced it all. His biological parent went onto to have other children. These they kept. You can imagine the narrative about his life that Don has carried. Rejection (or perceived rejection) is his trigger to abusive practices.

Sonny lived in a family which can best be described as emotionally barren. His mother had an active drug problem and a string of men friends. His experience when a new man came on the scene was that he was relegated to second place. At those times he acted out. He was then punished by his mother and often her new boyfriend. He learnt not to trust women. In his adult relationships he doesn’t allow himself to be vulnerable.

Two men, two stories. For all of the men I have worked with each has a narrative to explain how come they are in the position they are. Each has a myriad of things to overcome. Can these men change there abusive practices?

This is a question that I am often asked. Having worked in the field of family violence intervention for the past thirty years people kind of expect i might have an opinion on he matter. My answer is: “It depends”. This answer does not satisfy anyone really. It certainly wouldn’t satisfy me without further explanation.

The question of whether men can change their use of abusive practices needs to be stated in a much clearer way. A much better question is “What interventions work with who?” Other questions that we can ask alongside of this question include, “What is the nature of the intervention/program and who is this intervention/program effective for?” You and I both know that not all intervention/programs are effective for all participants. I don’t know about your experience but I have learnt over the years some men do surprisingly well in interventions/programs while others fail to engage. With a third group we may even be escalating risk by teaching more sophisticated skills of abuse.

We know that some men presenting at interventions/programs have many more issues to overcome than others. Don and Sonny are both examples of this complexity. Obviously the more complex the persons background in terms of trauma and own victimisation, the more challenging it is to get a result. If we were to develop a brief summary of the key predictors, then the following would fall out:

  1. Violence in family of origin – most of us would recognise that if a man both saw abuse and was abused in his family of origin, then the chances of being abusive as an adult increase markedly. Have a look at this fantastic clip: Children see, children do. I don’t know about you but I am often staggered by the experience of many of the many who I work with. In a study I carried out of 366 attending a stopping violence program, 60% of the men stated they witnessed abuse between their parents, 21% saw beatings with weapons, 48% slapping, 75% emotional abuse (swearing, yelling, put-downs), 60% sulking, 48% sarcasm, walking out, ignoring, 48% sarcasm, 45% alcohol and drug use.
  2. Low education and income – while not a causal factor, compounded stress of low income is a contributing marker for abusive behaviour.  It is interesting the current debate around an underclass within the New Zealand context and how this translates into more risk. In my experience we often have a whole range of factors that come together to create what some might call the perfect storm. In the context of violence of course, the perfect combination.
  3. Active alcohol abuse issues – alcohol is highly associated with abusive acts in both public and private places. Ask any police officer their experience of attending family violence incidents on a Friday and Saturday night. Alcohol is certainly a disinhibitor for behaviour.
  4. Personality disorders – we know that there is a group of men who are emotionally dependant and what they fear most is abandonment. This fear of abandonment exhibits in jealous rages and attempts to deprive their partners of an independent life. Holt discusses the future blog, but suffice to say this stage, that we do worry about this group in terms of high risk behaviour post separation.
  5. Anti-social personality  – while I am not a great fan of labelling we do know where there are antisocial attitudes and beliefs, the risk of public violence is high.
  6. Child abuse – it is now widely recognised that where there is abuse towards children and towards animals is a significant marker for family violence. Half of men who have been identified as being abusive to their partners have also abused a child. Attitudes that support abusive practices don’t get turned off to other family members.
  7. Behavioural deficits – some men just don’t possess the fundamental skills of relating to others. We are not talking about rehabilitation (gaining back something lost) but habilitation – building the base for new skills in the first place. I will talk in a blog in a couple of weeks about the ideas of social competence as a marker for social engagement in group interventions.
  8. Generalised aggression  – I don’t know about your experience, but mine is that when men are publicly violent, then the chances of private violence increases markedly. If a man is prepared to ignore sanctions around behaviour in the public sphere, then it is likely the private behaviour has little chance of being different. A sense of entitlement along with a tendency to be hedonistic and impulsive, makes for an interesting combination.

We have come a long way in our thinking regarding the idea of matching interventions to the type of abusive practice that men present with. With careful case formulation we can identify and match this to the intervention approach. We are then able to get a much better response and can answer the question, “Can men who use abusive practices change?” in the affirmative.

What do you think?  Love to hear your comments.

5 reasons to mandate guys to DV programs

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Would this man voluntarily attend a program?

I worry about some of the debates that are occurring at the moment in the family violence arena. Unless we are very careful we can roll back  the hard earned gains that have been achieved over the last 30 years. I also deliberately use the word ‘guy’ because most of those referred to family violence intervention programs tend to be men. We are seeing more women coming to notice but that is another issue for another blog.

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Western Australia always a wonderful experience

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Recently we took our team back to Perth to support the program work undertaken by WA Department of Corrective Services. During this trip we were able to trial a number of new training packages to enhance practice. The ten days was a busy time working with a wide range of groups who both support and run intervention with offenders. Along with facilitation skills, we delivered packages on case formulation, supporting offenders in change work, intervention skills in working with female offenders, and supervision training.

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From Ken’s desk September 2011

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A friend to our work will be sorely missed 
 
On July 24th 2011 Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson died (aged 64 years) after a short illness. Judge Johnson was known for his commitment to the concept of therapeutic jurisprudence – the study of the effects of law and the legal system on the behaviour, emotions, and mental health of people.