Become a great climate conversant with motivational interviewing training!
May 18th, May 25th, June 1st, & June 8th, four Wednesday evenings, 6-8 pm (online via Zoom)
This series of training sessions is designed to help you learn and apply best-practice communication skills to climate conversations, where you may feel everything is at stake. Using a range of experiential learning activities, including self-reflection, role plays, and observation experiences, you'll develop your ability to be the best climate conversant you can be. The training is based on Motivational Interviewing, an evidence-based process that evokes another person's motivations for change and resolves their feelings and thoughts of resistance. Medical professionals use it to help their patients move towards healthy behaviors -- and it works for tricky conversations about climate change, too.
What is Motivational Interviewing?
Motivational Interviewing is a process of emotional self-regulation, active listening, and conversational curation that evokes another person's motivations for change and resolves their feelings and thoughts of resistance. Motivational Interviewing is an evidence-based process that has existed and steadily grown in applications since 1980. It is the gold standard for bedside manner, used by nurses and doctors seeking to help their patients move towards healthy behaviors, and it works for tricky conversations about climate change too. Imagine yourself in conversation with an important community leader who has the power to advance climate solutions that you believe are urgently needed. You start to share some scientific concepts and the response you hear back feels non-committal and avoidant. That response raises your anxiety, along with your desire to communicate the incredible importance of taking robust climate action now. Psychological science knows about this very human and emotional process, just like environmental science knows about climate change. Feelings of anxiety, stress, and the need for a specific outcome change our body’s hormonal balance, shifting what we think, how we think, and what ultimately gets communicated in a conversation. Expressions like “its not what you say, it's how you say it” and “silence speaks louder than words” allude to communications challenges that we are all familiar with. People are incredibly intuitive. We know when someone is trying to convince us of something, and when we hear people trying to convince us, the typical human response is to resist being convinced. This four-session series of Motivational Interviewing training sessions will provide a range of experiential learning activities, including self-reflection, visualization exercises, breakout room activities, role plays, and observation experiences, all designed to help you integrate best practice communications and find your ability to be the best climate conversant you can be. Register now to participate!
Vince Schutt is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), a global network of trainers in motivational interviewing, and founder of Enviromentum. He is passionate about sharing concepts from the behavioral sciences with those who seek to facilitate change for societal good. Vince has applied knowledge of behavioral science evidence in a number of programs in collaboration with TDSB, Ryerson University, Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA), Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL), Peel Region and more. Vince is committed to advancing motivational interviewing as a way to rethink how we communicate environmental concepts at a societal level.
This training series is sponsored by Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE), New Yorkers for Clean Power, Citizens’ Climate Lobby NY, Climate Reality Project - WNY, Climate Reality Project - Finger Lakes Chapter, Pachamama Alliance of the Rochester Area (PARA) & Climate Solutions Accelerator.
