Motivational Interviewing in Child Welfare Services: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Families in the child welfare (CW) system who cannot be engaged in services are at high risk of negative outcomes. As motivational interviewing (MI) has been shown to improve engagement in similar contexts. This study aimed to systematically review MI with CW families as well as MI training with CW workers and social work students training to become CW workers. The review used Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines and searched multiple databases in June 2018. In September 2019, the initial search was repeated with additional searches to identify gray literature. Eight studies described the acquisition of MI among CW workers or student trainees, and 11 studies evaluated the impact of MI on families in CW. MI’s impact on some family outcomes, such as engagement in services, was mixed, though MI paired with other evidence-based treatments showed positive effects. With regard to training CW workers and students in MI, differences in training duration, intensity, and modality make conclusions difficult, though trainees generally described MI favorably and some studies showed training increased worker empathy and self-efficacy. Importantly, few published studies have evaluated whether MI-trained CW workers impact out-of-home-care placement, and no studies have evaluated their impact on maltreatment.

The Effectiveness of Motivational Interviewing on Situational Emotions and Temperament/Character Dimensions among Probationary University Students

“…Wells & Jones (Wells & Jones, 2018) showing that MI helps teachers create a learning environment based on cooperativeness, empowerment, participation and motivation, and with the understanding of the emotional dimension of learning. Moreover, the results are inconsistent with those of Ashouri et al (Ashouri et al, 2015) showing that MI is effective in increasing self-efficacy and self-concept of low-achieving high school students and with those of Hall, Sears & Walton (Hall et al, 2020) that showed that teaching MI to welfare organization staff leads to increased self-efficacy. The results were also inconsistent with those of McCabe et al (McCabe et al, 2019) that showed using MI in people with OCD undergoing ERP treatment enhances self-efficacy, leads to greater adherence to treatment, and consequently reduces symptoms and treatment stability.…”

“…The results of Ashrafzadeh et al (Ashrafzadeh et al, 2017) indicated that MI training has had a significant impact on academic self-efficacy and problem solving of female high school students. Hall, Sears & Walton (Hall et al, 2020) concluded that MI training to welfare organization employees increased self-efficacy and empathy in them. Strait, Williams & Peters (Strait et al, 2019) showed that MI improved student academic performance.…”

Partnering With Parents: Reviewing the Evidence for Motivational Interviewing in Child Welfare

“…Some graduate-level social work programs are already training students for MI practice (Barth et al, 2017;Iachini, Lee, DiNovo, Lutz, & Frey, 2018;Pecukonis et al, 2016) (Corcoran, 2016;Hohman, 2012). In addition, there are videos specific to training MI in CW developed by the University of Minnesota and University of California, Davis (Hall & Hohman, 2012). Moreover, collaborative partnerships similar to those described by Iachini and colleagues at the University of South Carolina (2018) could be developed with Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, which hosts live and self-paced online training courses.…”

“…Dauber and colleagues (2017) expressed that some of these approaches may be used to improve the implementation in future trials. For example, Hall and Hohman (2012) provide a manual specifically on applying MI to CW settings, which is available at no cost along with corresponding videos online. Given the results of Forrester et al (2018), more research is needed on the amount of MI training and supervision needed to improve skills as well as possible CW outcomes.…”

Case conceptualization in child welfare: an underused resource to improve child, family, and provider outcomes

“…Second, many clients have ambivalence about services and treatments, with part of them moving towards change and another part of them resisting change. Practitioners need strategies to support clients in moving towards change, such as those offered by motivational interviewing ( 75 ). Third, while a working alliance is a consistent mediator of change ( 76 , 77 ), including in contexts where treatment is mandated [for example, by child welfare ( 78 )], difficulties with alliance between providers and clients should be anticipated and problem-solved in child welfare work.…”