Examples of Each Practice Skill
Beginning skills / Introduce self and role / Hello, my name is Avani Jones and I am a practitioner here at the ABC agency.Seek introductions / I understand that your name is Tina Moreles. Do you prefer that we use first or last names? (She says first names)
Okay, Tina, please call me Avani.
Location of meeting / We are going meet here in my office.
Length of meeting / Usually I meet with people for about 50 minutes, but since this is our first meeting, we may need more time. Is that okay with you?
Purpose of meeting / The purpose of this first meeting is for you to tell me about the problems and challenges you are facing.
Practitioner’s role / I will be listening to you so that I can get to know you and understand your situation. I will probably also ask you some questions so that I can more clearly understand.
Client’s role / I know you just met me, but I hope you will tell me about yourself and your situation.
Ethics / Everything that you say will be kept confidential within the agency except if you give me written permission to talk to another person. If I think you might hurt yourself or another person, I am required to report my concerns.
Seek feedback / Do you have any questions at this point?
Beginning subsequent meetings / Ask client where to begin / What would you like to begin talking about today?
Summary / Last week we talked about the challenges you are having with your boss and discussed what you have already done to work on that problem
Identify task for meeting / In our last meeting we agreed that each person in the group would talk to three of their neighbors and ask if they are interested in joining the crime watch. Let’s start by giving everyone a chance to report on your discussions with your neighbors.
Ask about progress / What has gone well since we last met?
Ask about homework / In our last meeting I gave you a homework assignment. Tell me how you did on that assignment.
Ask about problems / You were quite concerned about the fact that there are so many fights in your family. Will you tell me about any fights that you had since our last meeting?
Observation about
past meeting / As I was thinking about our meeting last week, I wondered about what might have been going on that only a few of you talked because usually everyone is jumping in with ideas.
Check-in / Let’s start by going around the room and giving everyone a chance to briefly share how you are feeling.
Closing skills (for a meeting) / Identify meeting to end / We are running out of time and will need to close this meeting in 10 minutes.
Summary of meeting / Let me take a minute and summarize my understanding of the key topics that we focused on. We talked about the increased crime in the neighborhood and the concerns all of you are feeling.
Review task to be
completed / Each person agreed to talk to three neighbors who are not at this meeting to see if maybe they would be willing to come to the next meeting.
Discuss plans for the future / We decided to meet again in 2 weeks at 7 pm in the community room.
Invite client feedback / I’d like to take a couple of minutes before we close to hear your thoughts about how your work with me is going.
Ask about final questions / Does anyone have any final questions before we close?
Skills to express understanding / Minimal encouragement / Your friends?
Reflect feeling / You sound sad.
Reflect content / Your best friend is moving to California.
Reflect feeling and
content / So you are feeling sad as you think about your best friend moving to California.
Summary / As I understand it, there have been a number of challenges for you in the last several months: You have a new job, you are getting ready to sell your house, and now you heard that your best friend is moving to California.
Exploring meanings / So when you think about your friend moving, you feel particularly troubled because she is one of the few people that you have ever been able to trust.
Identify strengths / I am impressed that you and your friend were able to create such a meaningful relationship.
Express understanding before question / So you are afraid that you will never find another friend that you can be that close to. Will you tell me more about what makes you think that?
Questioning skills / Open-ended question / What are some of the things that you particularly enjoy doing with your friend?
Close-ended question / Have you and your friends ever gone on a vacation together?
Question about strengths / What do you think your friend would say to describe what she likes about you?
Indirect question / Tell me more about your friendship.
Questions about problems or challenges / Explore previous
attempts / What have you already done to work on this problem?
Explore history / When did this problem begin?
Explore severity and intensity / How often does this problem happen in a week?
Questions about person / Explore feelings / How are you feeling about having two burglaries in the neighborhood?
Explore effects of
problems / Since you lost job, have you lost weight or had trouble sleeping?
Explore strengths / Tell me about the skills you use in your job.
Questions about situation / Explore effect of problem on others / I know that you have felt quite concerned since you lost your job. Will you tell me about the impact losing your job has had on your family?
Explore available support / Who are some of the people who have helped you get acquainted in this new community?
Explore other demands and stresses / I know that you are feeling lonely in this new town and struggling in your new job. Are there other stresses in your life?
Reaching agreement about problems or challenges / Partialize / So as I understand it, there are three areas that you want to work on. First is the increased crime in the neighborhood. Second is the lack of a neighborhood organization that might work together on problems. Third is that the kids have no safe place to play. Do I have that right?
Advanced reflecting / Since you lived “in the middle of nowhere” as a young child and didn’t have friends to play with, having a close friend is something you really value and you expected that the two of you would be close for many years.
Identify patterns or themes / It sounds like all of you want to learn a more effective way to discipline your children.
Identify discrepancies / So all of you think that there aren’t enough services for the Spanish speaking population that lives around here; but as I understand it, you haven’t taken any steps to work on the problem. Help me understand what is holding you back.
Roll with resistance / I understand you are very unsure about whether this process will be helpful.
Support self-efficacy / I am impressed with your understanding of your role in these problems.
Agreement on problem / So as I understand it, you think that an important problem in your relationship is that you have been so stressed about work that you haven’t paid attention to your wife.
Reaching agreement about goals* / General goal / So you want to pay more attention to your wife.
Question to develop a MAPS goal / Tell me what you will be doing in order to pay attention to your wife.
Agreement of MAPS goal / So your goal is to spend at least 10 minutes every day listening to your wife without any distractions and to spend one evening a week doing something fun with your wife.*
Taking Action / Identifying steps* / What are your ideas about the steps you need to take to reach your goal?
Teach or give information / There is a difference between hearing and listening. When you are listening, you are focusing on trying to understand the other person. Lots of the time in our busy lives we hear what another person is saying and could even repeat their words back to them but are thinking or doing something else.
Direct / Let’s practice what you might say to let your wife know you are listening to her. I will be your wife and you can try different ways to show me you are listening.
Invite different perspective / I understand that you wish your wife wasn’t so critical of you. I wonder if she is feeling stressed and overworked, too.
Give feedback / As we are talking, I noticed that you look stressed and are wringing you hands.
Use self-disclosure / Wow, I am so impressed with your understanding of your role in this situation.
or
My mother died a couple of years ago. I remember how I felt soon after her death.
Focus on improvement / It sounds like you were able to fit in sitting with your wife and listening to her concerns several times in the last week. That may sound like an easy task, but I know that it isn’t. I hope you are proud of your accomplishment.
Evaluating and ending a professional relationship / Readiness to end / We have been talking about not meeting anymore. Let’s talk about whether you think you are ready to stop coming in and meeting with me.
Evaluate progress / When we started working together, we set some goals. Let’s talk about whether you have achieved each one of the goals.
Client’s satisfaction / I’d like to know what you have appreciated about our work together and also what you did not like about our work together.
When the meetings will end / Our last meeting will be 2 weeks from today.
Share feelings / I have enjoyed working with you and watching your progress, and I will miss seeing you. How are you feeling about the ending of our relationship?
Summary of accomplishments and strengths / As I think back over our work together, I am impressed with everything that you have accomplished. As a family you found ways to work together on tasks, and this has given you more time to do fun thing together.
Plans for the future / I think your plan to join a support group of single parents is a great idea. I bet you will meet lots of people who are in a similar situation to you.
*Caveat: Goals and steps
Every practitioner has a different style, and many agencies have different expectations. Some practitioners prefer to use MAPS goals all the time, and some agencies require very specific, measurable goals. Other practitioners prefer to work with more general goals but may identify very specific steps as they help clients think about ways to reach their goals. The previous example of a MAPS goal might be a step for a practitioner working with a general goal of “I will change my behavior in order to improve my marriage.”