Conversations for the harder moments: tools and scenarios

Motivational Interviewing is a way of talking that uses open questions, careful listening and curiosity to help a person explore their own reasons for change.

It was developed by William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick in the 1980s, first in addiction work. It is now used across health, education, social care and youth work.

The central idea is simple. The more we tell someone they need to change, the more likely they are to push back. The more we ask what they want and listen carefully, the more likely they are to find their own way forward.

Miller and Rollnick call the urge to fix, advise or correct the righting reflex. Notice that urge, then pause before acting on it.

Motivational Interviewing moves between four processes:

1. Engaging: Build trust and a working relationship.
2. Focusing: Agree what feels important to talk about.
3. Evoking: Draw out the young person’s own reasons for change.
4. Planning: Help them decide what they want to do next.

Use OARS to guide the conversation: Open questions, Affirmations, Reflective listening, Summaries. These skills help you understand the young person’s point of view. Notice when you have moved from listening into advising, correcting or trying to solve the problem for them.

Watch: What is Motivational Interviewing ↗

Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers ↗

Three Black boys are standing together in a corridor, talking. A member of staff tells them to split up and move along. They say they were not doing anything. The exchange escalates.

Ask yourself:

• Would I see three children from a different background, standing in the same place, as a problem?
• What was the actual risk here, and what was my assumption?
• Could the boys be reacting to a pattern they have experienced before, not only to this interaction?

One young person in our research described a “no groups of three” rule applied only to Black students.

Two children do roughly the same thing: answer back, push a boundary or mess about. One is sent out of class. The other is told off lightly and stays. Afterwards, a colleague describes the second child as “a cheeky chap”.

Ask yourself:

• Did the responses match the behaviour, or was something else shaping the decision?
• What words do I use for different children, and what assumptions sit behind them?
• If I tracked who was sent out of my room over a term, what pattern would I see?

A young person who is usually chatty has been withdrawn for two weeks. You have five minutes with them. Your instinct is to ask, “Is everything OK at home?”

Ask yourself:

• Has a direct welfare question worked with this young person before, or does it close the conversation down?
• What could I share about my own week first, to make this feel more like a conversation than an interview?
• Is there something we could do side by side, so talking is invited rather than demanded?

For ideas on starting conversations without pressure, see Chapter 8.

A young person begins telling you something serious. Partway through, you realise you may need to share it with someone else. They have not finished speaking and do not yet know this.

Ask yourself:

• Did I explain at the start what I can keep private and what I may need to share?
• If not, how can I explain this honestly now?
• How can I tell them what may happen next without making them regret speaking?
• How can I keep them involved, rather than acting over their head?

Use this scenario alongside Chapter 4, which explains what stays private and what may need to be passed on.

A Black mother has been speaking up for her child for two terms. She knows the guidance, keeps every email and brings a folder to meetings. In the staffroom, a colleague describes her as difficult and wonders whether a referral to social services is needed.

A serving teacher in our research saw this happen and named the problem.

Ask yourself and your colleagues:

• What exactly is difficult here, and whose difficulty is it?
• Is this a parent challenging the school, or a specific concern about a child’s safety and wellbeing?
• What would a referral actually be for?
• If the honest answer is, “She keeps challenging us”, is that a safeguarding concern?
• Would a parent from a different background, with the same folder, be described as thorough rather than difficult?

A child cannot sit still through an hour-long lesson. Their behaviour is recorded as fidgeting, being off-task or disruptive. The school day has no planned movement breaks.

In our family research, a child in a setting with a flexible timetable described the difference simply: being able to move around and be able to breathe.

Ask yourself:

• What might this behaviour be telling me about the timetable, not only the child?
• When did this child last have a genuine opportunity to move?
• What might a two-minute movement break between long periods of sitting change?
• What condition can I change today?

Children who thrive in settings built around warmth and movement are not different children. They are the same children in different conditions.