I’m often asked what is the most important thing local authorities need to deliver a successful HRA service. Hands down for me is interviewing skills because it’s the most effective tool to understand what’s going on for the household, discuss their situation and come up with solutions. This led us to think: could we develop a training package that touched on motivational interviewing skills and how these are applied during the HRA process? The answer was yes and we have learnt loads delivering it in Oxfordshire, Durham and Middlesbrough so far.

The role of motivational interviewing

I recognise a lot of factors are important to administer an effective HRA service but good interviewing skills and the ability to develop a holistic personalised plan is in my opinion, a number one priority. Many local authorities shared this sentiment and quickly booked their officers on motivational interviewing training which is great to see.

Motivational interviewing is fundamentally well-suited to the HRA process. It is a technique that emerged from coaching and is nicely described by its creators as “a collaborative, person-centered form of guiding to elicit and strengthen motivation to change”. It’s an approach to motivate people who are unmotivated, expresses sympathy and avoids confrontation where you adjust to the client’s resistance rather than opposing it directly. Motivational interviewing is non-judgemental about the client’s behaviour and optimistic in its approach. 

What I like most about motivational interviewing is how it’s “defined not by technique but by its spirit as a facilitative style for interpersonal relationship”.

Tailoring to the HRA context

Local authorities we spoke to wanted to equip their staff with skills to interview in a more ‘motivating’ way but within the context of their roles. This led us to think: could we develop a training that provides a more practical grounding for officers as opposed to an in-depth motivational interviewing course?

The key challenge was how to apply motivational interviewing techniques when faced with time constraints to undertake an assessment, develop a personalised plan, fulfil legal obligations and complete administrative tasks. Meanwhile encouraging clients to complete the steps within their personalised plan.

We also didn’t want to duplicate anything that was already available. We have always strived to make sure our work is a point of difference - to fill a gap rather than replicating something that already exists.

Developing the training

I’m not an expert in motivational interviewing so I enlisted the help of our Crisis Skylight Coaches who utilise a coaching model with our members. We started with a full coaching training package but quickly realised a coaching style wouldn’t work for local authorities. It requires substantial time and regular engagement with the household which often aren’t possible in statutory services.

We decided to design the course around the four processes of motivational interviewing – engaging, focussing, evoking and planning. These provide a good fit with the HRA: 

• Engaging - building rapport when developing the assessment and personalised plan
• Focussing - help focus on the issues that brought them to the local authority
• Evoking - eliciting hope, you can’t underestimate the power of hope, no matter how small 
• Planning - summarising the interview and reflecting back the agreed steps in the plan

We then designed the training activities around the typical client journey through the HRA process. This can also be tailored to the specific service model used by the local authority. The activities were mostly centred around how staff would interview households (consistent with a motivational interviewing style) to:

• understand their situation and their housing/support needs
• seek out what their end goal could look like
• encourage a way forward through the agreed steps 

Delivery and improvement

So far we have delivered the training in Oxfordshire, Durham and Middlesbrough. We’ve learnt a lot through this process but are still looking at how we can make it more dynamic, challenging and relevant for frontline housing officers. We are also developing a suite of practical tools for both officers and managers to help embed the training in their day-to-day work. Too often we go on training days, learn a lot and forget it the week later. This is something we really want to avoid.

After piloting in a few sites it is back to the drawing board. We are meeting with the Crisis Coaches at the end of July to reflect, understand the feedback from attendees and make further improvements and iterations. We’ve had a lot of interest in this type of training and we want to get it right. We also want to share this with other authorities as soon as possible so watch this space and sign up for regular blog updates on our project site. Feel free to comment below with your thoughts/ experiences as well -  we are always keen to hear from others.