As a corrections professional, every interaction counts. Learning skills to develop a professional alliance with people on supervision is key to improving outcomes, especially in non-voluntary settings such as the justice system.

Building Rapport and People-First Language

Correctional professionals have a dual role of facilitating behavior change and holding people accountable to rules and expectations. To achieve both, rapport with people on supervision is essential. Equally important is using people-first language when engaging with others.

The Building Rapport EBP Brief outlines why building rapport matters, strategies for building rapport, and challenges and solutions to building rapport. It also details the four core correctional practices (CCP), which are effective strategies for improving outcomes.

The words we use matter when building rapport, so do the labels that are often placed on people with justice involvement. Labels or generalizations are discouraged because they generally focus on past actions and often prevent the opportunity for someone to experience positive change. When we use people-first language in internal and external communications we demonstrate that we see each person individually, not as a group or associate with negative actions and behaviors. This communications approach has been proven effective since first being used in the 1970s because of the focus on one’s humanity. People-first language is one of many techniques that builds rapport and leads to law-abiding behavior.

In October 2024, PPCJI published the Coaching for Excellence in Community Supervision Toolkit. In addition to offering an overview of coaching research, strategies for implementation and application, and easy-to-use customizable tools, the toolkit includes a section dedicated to professional alliance.

Resources:
EBP Brief: Building Rapport

EBP Brief: People-First Language

Coaching for Excellence in Community Supervision Toolkit

 Videos and Discussion Guides

Educational videos are a great and proven way to engage employees, develop skills, and improve performances. Combined with discussion guides, videos offer an interactive skills development opportunity for employees. The complementary discussion guides provide an overview of related research, expound on best practices, and include questions that encourage individual, job-specific responses.

The Building Professional Alliance video includes lived experience from a person with former justice involvement who is now helping others to live productive, law-abiding lives. With a professional alliance in mind, the video provides guidance on teaching people with justice involvement the skills needed to affect behavior change while also holding them accountable. A few key takeaways:

• Everyone has a desire to feel in control and have a say.
• People with justice involvement expect corrections professionals to be clear about rules and conditions, as well as with consequences.
• Trusting the person responsible for supervision of people with justice involvement is essential.

With a professional alliance in place, successful second chances become a greater reality. Most humans are creatures of habit with daily routines–good or bad. Changing our routines is not always easy and may be met with resistance, especially if previous attempts failed. The Overcoming Resistance to Change video and discussion guide explore reluctance and resistance and provide tips for correctional professionals to respond in a way that positively changes the trajectory of the people they are supervising. The video includes example conversations between a correctional professional and a person with justice involvement and outlines techniques for positive results.

Resources:

Video: Building Professional Alliance

Discussion Guide: Professional Alliance

Video: Overcoming Resistance to Change

Discussion Guide: Overcoming Resistance

Probation Officer Senior Victoria Brown, Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas

Pro Tip:

When looking at motivational interviewing in terms of how it can influence and affect a professional relationship, I immediately think about engagement. Engagement, as a motivation interviewing term, speaks to the relationship between individuals and often predicts how successful the “change” will be. Relationships where engagement is not fostered, skipped, or all together ignored, do not produce the same level of success moving toward the targeted behavior change. A “professional relationship” means a working, engaged relationship without becoming friends or sharing personal details.

Many practitioners who use motivational interviewing work in law enforcement, therapy /treatment, and healthcare where you typically see a clear power differential—there is someone in charge and someone who should listen or comply. Motivational interviewing relies on the engaged professional relationships to guide toward behavior change instead of relying on power differentials and directing people into compliance. Engagement is key to motivational interviewing.

There are typically three types of people: those who do not want to change, those who are ready to make changes, and those who are ambivalent about making changes. By recognizing most people are ambivalent about change, we create an opportunity to introduce motivational interviewing principles into professional relationships and, subsequently, to improve outcomes. Engagement in relationships means that you give time to hear both sides of ambivalence and allow time to validate a person’s reasons to stay the same before drawing out the reasons for change. Through engagement, correctional professionals are better able to assist people in moving toward the targeted change behavior.  

Motivational Interviewing with Offenders: Engagement, Rehabilitation, and Reentry by Jill D. Stinson and Michael D. Clark recommends six key questions to monitor the level of engagement:

1. Do I feel respected?
2. Do they listen to me and try to understand my ideas?
3. Do I trust this person?
4. Do they allow me to have a say in how I comply with my directives (court orders, treatment, etc.)?
5. Am I offered options or is it always “one size fits all”?
6. Do they negotiate with me instead of dictating the rules?

These six key questions can be used in any relationship when working on a mutually negotiated task. By incorporating the six questions into your relationships, it leads to a situation where both sides feel valued and heard. When the other person can answer “yes” to these questions, your engagement has evolved to the desired place where positive outcomes are possible.

Motivational interviewing techniques can be especially effective for those looking to make evidence-based changes within their agencies, organizations and within their personal and professional relationships.

For more information about the benefits of implementing motivational interviewing in your agency: vbrown@lancastercountypa.gov.

Next Month:  Fidelity (ensuring planned, consistent, and accurate implementation) 

Positive change is possible for everyone in Pennsylvania. We look forward to continuing to enhance your EBP knowledge and invite you to submit education/resource requests to askppcji@gmail.com.