April Educational Webinar: Motivational Interviewing
Please join Carilyn Ellis, psychology intern at the Salt Lake VA Medical Center, as she presents the Society of Certified Senior Advisors April 2014 Educational Webinar, Motivational Interviewing: Tools for fostering improved motivation in your clients to make decisions and achieve their goals.
This event will be held Wednesday, April 23rd at 2:00 PM (EST).
Motivational Interviewing, known as MI in the psychological community, is a set of skills and tools for helping clients resolve their ambivalence about making decisions and setting goals for achieving their desired outcomes – whether this is quitting smoking, losing weight, filing for Medicare/Medicaid, selling belongings, moving into assisted living etc. Where there are decisions, there is ambivalence, and it can be so difficult as advisors for our clients to watch them swing like pendulums and often fail to make important decisions until the power is taken out of their hands (e.g. going to extended care or skilled nursing due to a fall). MI is NOT motivational speaking – in fact, you do far less speaking with motivational interviewing. It is a set of reflective listening skills and targeted questions that foster internal motivation in clients and resolution of their ambivalence (they tend to make the decisions when you use MI). This presentation will include some background on the theory, but it will mostly focus on the practical tools that you can use with ALL of your clients to help them make decisions. Practical, real world examples relevant to CSAs will be used with sample dialogue and demonstration of each skill.
Carilyn Ellis, M.A., Carilyn Ellis is a psychology intern at the Salt Lake VA Medical Center, specializing in Palliative Care, Geriatric Home-Based Primary Care, Outpatient Mental Health and Neuropsychology. Carilyn completed her Master of Arts (M.A.) in clinical psychology and doctor of psychology (Psy.D) at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. She loves her career and is motivated by a “profound personal belief that everyone, regardless of what he or she has done, reserves the right to an advocate.” She loves serving those who served our country, and especially loves working with aging Veterans. “It is a daily honor to provide care for Veterans during their end of life transitions. It is a unique position, because as much as I teach and comfort, I learn and am comforted by them.” The daughter of an international family, Carilyn spent years of her childhood living in Japan and travelling throughout Europe and the United States. When she is not working, she is running, reading, writing and exploring this strange new land of Utah.
