Solution-focused Brief Therapy in Schools

Solution-focused Brief Therapy in Schools

Cynthia Franklin, PhD, LCSW, LMFTAssistant Dean for Doctoral Education

cfranklin@mail.utexas.eduhttp://www.utexas.edu/ssw/faculty-and-staff/directory/franklin/

Goals of Workshop

• Understand core components of SFBT.

• Learn how to follow a SFBT change process.

• Discover and explore SFBT techniques for behavior change with children and adolescents

.

Welcome!

• School setting? • Name?• Experience with SFBT?• What do you want from this talk?

Photo by are you my rik?

SFBT: A Strengths-based Approach

Solution-focused Practice Wisdom

“It is better to practice a little than to talk a lot.”

Zen saying

“Knowing and not doing are equal to not knowing at all.”

Chinese saying

Also read the Book of the New Testament-Book of James

• Conversations center on client’s concerns.

• Conversations focus on co-constructing new meanings around client’s concerns.

• Specific techniques help clients co-construct a vision of a preferred future and draw upon past success and strengths to help resolve issues.

SFBT: A Strengths-based Approach

• Client is competent and expert on their life

• Helper is collaborative (coach, facilitator)• Tentative connection between problem

and solution?

Attitudes to Keep in Mind

Warm-up Exercise

• Pair off• Goal you had as a child

– What? Who? How often? Where?– Influence on you as a child?– Influence on you now?

SFBT Approach in School Settings

• Provides a way to use helping skills and can be used by an interdisciplinary team.

• Offers transportable skills and change process.

• Can be used in settings requiring brief intervention.

• Has a foundation in research.

Research on SFBT• SFBT has been applied to a wide range of problems such as

mental disorders, substance use, child protective services, domestic violence, and school-related behavior problems.

• Overall, we have more than 25 RCT’s and approximately 50 quasi-experimental studies (including 2 meta-analyses) and other recent narrative and systematic reviews of the literature.

• The outcome research to date shows SFBT to have a small to moderate positive outcome. When compared with established treatments in well-designed studies, SFBT is the equivalent of other approaches, and sometimes produces results in substantially less time and at less cost.

EBP Recognition SAMHSA’s National Registry on Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP) for treating substance abuse and mental health disorders. [www.nrepp.samhsa.gov]

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Model Programs Guide national registry as a “promising” intervention for academic problems. [http://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/mpgProgramDetails.aspx ID=712]

Taking Charge intervention recognized by OJJDP and Crime Solutions.org

Available from Oxford University Press

Reviews of SFBT Research in Schools

Kim, J. S. & Franklin, C. (2009). Solution-focused brief therapy in schools: A Review of

Outcome Literature. Children and YouthServices Review, 31, 461-47.

Franklin, C., Kim J. S., & Tripodi, S. J. (2009).A meta-analysis of published school socialwork practice studies, 1980-2007. Researchon Social Work Practice, 19, 667.

Recent School Review

Franklin, C., Kim. J. S., & Stewart-Brigman, K. (2012). Solution-focused brief therapy in school settings. In C. Franklin et al. (Eds.), Solution-focused brief therapy: A Handbook of Evidence-based Practice (pp. 231-246). NY: Oxford University Press.

Across Cultures: Reviews from Taiwan and China

Zhang, Y., Liu, X., Franklin, C., Qu, Y., Chen,

H., & Kim, J. S. (2015). The practice ofsolution-focused brief therapy inMainland China. Health and Social Work.

Meta-Analysis on Latinos

• Emerging Spanish practice literature & 4 RCT’s & 3 Quasi-

• Experiments

Examples of SFBT Interventions for Schools

WOWW (Working on What Works) A teacher coaching intervention piloted in Florida, Chicago, and Massachusetts 2005-2012.

Garza High School Training a whole school in SFBT to promote graduation of at-risk students. Three studies (one quasi-experiment) and sustainment of intervention 2002-present.

Taking Charge Curriculum for adolescent mothers to improve attendance and grades. Three studies that showed positive changes in school performance measures. One small RCT

Garza is a Model School

• Alternative school • Trans-disciplinary

training of all staff on SFBT

• School culture • SFBT techniques

transformed into school interventions

Garza High School

• Alternative school • Trans-disciplinary

training of all staff on SFBT

• School culture • SFBT techniques

transformed into school interventions

SFBT in School Application Garza Star Walk

Presentation of the student’s completed academic portfolio before teachers, family, and friends. The portfolio presentation allows the students to discuss their academic skills and successes and show samples of their work.

Presentation of a Garza Star, which is an inscribed glass paper weight, that is given to each Garza graduate. At this presentation, the principal also tells an inspiring story about how much the student has changed since he/she came to Garza.

The student marches around the school with selected family members, friends, and teachers with accompanying music played over the campus speakers. During this march, the other students and teachers come out into the hall or stand in the doors of classrooms to applaud, cheer, and blow bubbles (Kelly, Kim, & Franklin, 2008).

Garza Star WalkThree Components

Garza Star Walk in Action

Taking Charge Treatment Manual

Taking Charge Group Intervention

SFBT 8 session group program for adolescent mothers: SFBT & CBT

Solution-focused goals and future tasks for helping students resolve everyday issues.

School-related skills and behaviors that increase their chance of graduating from high school.

Social problem-solving skills for managing difficult situations. Proactive coping for managing school, parenting, and relationship problems, as well as preparing for a career.

From Problem Solving to Solution Building

Keep talkingKeep talking

I’m diagnosing youI’m diagnosing you

Solution Process

How Solution Build • Constructive use of language • Selective listening • Solution-talk

Korman, H., Bavelas, J. B., & De Jong, P. (2013).Microanalysis of formulations in solution-

focused brief therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and motivational interviewing. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 32, 32-46.

Solution-focused ListeningAttentive listening to the person’s story

Intentional listening: What the person wants

to be different• Strengths and resources• Attributes you can compliment• Ways change is already happening• Small steps and ways to get started

Directional listening: Move stories toward solution talk instead of problem talk

Intentional Listening• Record the person’s words/meanings

for:– Problem description– Strengths and resources– Who and what are important to the person– What the person might want

What are some ways you can compliment this person?

Solution-talk Not Problem Talk

Listen, Select and Build: Solution Focused Connectors

• What tells you that … (echo person’s words)?• Tell me more about … (echo person’s words)?• So … is really important to you.• So what you want to see different is …?• Suppose that were to happen …• How would … be helpful?• What difference would … make for…?• Could that happen? What would it take?

Not Knowing Instead of Knowing it All

.

Watch Your Language • Questions and the way you use words

change the way people think and respond.

• Language is not neutral.

Healing, S., & Bavelas, J. (2011). Can questions lead to change? An analogue experiment. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 30(4), 30-47.

Opening Questions that Build Solutions

What has to happen today for it to be worth your time to come and talk?

Suppose after we talk today that your life would be different, what would have to happen?

Other Useful Questions• How is this a

problem for you?• When you solve this

problem, how will it make a difference for you?

• What will be different in your life?

Watch Your Language: Questions Matter

• Divide into dyads: client and helper• Conduct a normal interview about a

problem (5-10 minutes)– What brought you in today? – How long has the problem been going

on? – What have you done to solve the

problem?

Watch Your Language: Questions Matter

• Tell me about the times when this problem is a little bit better?

• How did you make this happen? What else?

• What are you doing differently during those times when things are a little bit better?

• What would your best friend (teacher, sibling, etc.) tell you when things are going a little bit better for you?

Questions that Promote Competencies

• I am sure you have good reasons for your actions. Tell me what some of those good reasons are.

• Tell me what accomplishments you are most proud of?

• What I am hearing is that you are able to….

• What I see about you is that you are good at…

Focus on Competencies

Turn something potentially negative into something positive.

Example:

Client: I left the class because I was pissed and she would not leave me alone. I was going to lose my temper.

Counselor: You took a time out to keep from blowing-up at her. Where did you learn that type of self-control? Some kids would have just cursed her out.

Other Questions that Promote Competencies

• I wonder if your teacher knows how much you…

• Who knows these positive things about you?

• Is there anything else that I forgot to ask that is important to you?

• When the client says something positive about themselves or others—interrupt… say that again.

Personal Strength or Positive Character in Negative

Responses Example: Client: My teacher hates me. She is like the devil. I hate her because she wants me to fail. Counselor: And you resist. Wow! You have got a lot of practice with her. I bet you have really good resistance skills. Where did you learn to be so strong? Do you think your teacher knows that you are so strong and determined?

Competencies • SFBT Video Example

Photo by Steven Depolo

Goal Formulation Principles

Co-construct goals that are:• Important to the person• Smaller not larger• Concrete, specific, behavioral• Presence of … not absence of … • Start of … not end of …• Perceived by client as involving hard

work• Describe who does what when and how

Goal and Task Questions

Questions to practice: – How could you do more of that this week? – What would happen if you did ___? What

would she do? – You are already doing “X,” which she likes.

What if you started doing “Y ” too? Would that make a difference?

– You have a big goal. What would be a small step towards making that goal a reality?

– What do you think is a small step you could take that the teacher would notice?

Using Scaling to Set a Goal

1. Develop a scale from 1-10 with the client. Refer back to scale as needed.

2. Establish two concrete behavioral descriptions or self-anchors that describe the problem and its solutions.

3. Obtain rating from the client on where they perceive they are on the scale today.

4. Ask the client how they will get to the next number.

Miracle Question “Let’s suppose that a miracle happened overnight and the problem you are having with your teacher, parent, etc. disappeared. But you were sleeping and did not know it. When you get up the next day, what would be the first thing that you would notice that is different?”

•Helps the client envision a new way of behaving and how things could be different.•Follow up with “how would that be different” questions and “relationship” questions.

How to Set Goals and Tasks • SFBT Video Example Continued

End of the Meeting

• Give 4-5 genuine compliments to the person.

• Offer a set of meaningful reflections or a concrete behavioral task for the person to work on that week.

• Obtain a commitment from the person to do a task.

• Communicate that you will follow-up on their successes.

• Set another meeting time if appropriate.

Use Solution-focused Forms • Teacher information for students sheet• Student information for teachers sheet• Notes to your students and parents• Goals at every meeting• Garza Manual

http://www.utexas.edu/ssw/faculty-and-staff/directory/franklin/

SFBT Review• Co-constructs positive conversations, thinking,

images, and behaviors. • Focuses on strengths in the present or

possibilities in the future. What has been working? What are the next steps that will be different?

• Listens intentionally for competencies and possibilities for change.

• Purposefully selects responses to create change• Facilitates interactions with people in ways that

enable them to build their own solutions.

Thank You! Contact: Cynthia Franklin, PhD, LCSW cfranklin@mail.utexas.edu