Solution-focused Brief Therapy in Schools

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Solution-focused Brief Therapy in Schools

• Cynthia Franklin, PhD, LCSW, LMFT
• Assistant Dean for Doctoral Education
• cfranklin_at_mail.utexas.edu
• http//www.utexas.edu/ssw/faculty-and-staff/direct
  ory/franklin/

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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
• .

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Welcome!

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

Photo by are you my rik?
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SFBT A Strengths-based Approach
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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

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SFBT A Strengths-based Approach

• Conversations center on clients concerns.
• Conversations focus on co-constructing new
  meanings around clients concerns.
• Specific techniques help clients co-construct a
  vision of a preferred future and draw upon past
  success and strengths to help resolve issues.

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Attitudes to Keep in Mind

• Client is competent and expert on their life
• Helper is collaborative (coach, facilitator)
• Tentative connection between problem and
  solution?

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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?

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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.

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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 RCTs 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.

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EBP Recognition

• SAMHSAs 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
  ID712
• Taking Charge intervention recognized by OJJDP
  and Crime Solutions.org

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Available from Oxford University Press
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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 Youth
• Services Review, 31, 461-47.
• Franklin, C., Kim J. S., Tripodi, S. J. (2009).
• A meta-analysis of published school social
• work practice studies, 1980-2007. Research
• on Social Work Practice, 19, 667.

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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.

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Across Cultures Reviews from Taiwan and China

• Zhang, Y., Liu, X., Franklin, C., Qu, Y., Chen,
• H., Kim, J. S. (2015). The practice of
• solution-focused brief therapy in
• Mainland China. Health and Social Work.

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Meta-Analysis on Latinos

• Emerging Spanish practice literature 4 RCTs
  3 Quasi-
• Experiments

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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

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Garza is a Model School

• School culture
• SFBT techniques transformed into school
  interventions

• Alternative school
• Trans-disciplinary training of all staff on SFBT

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Garza High School

• School culture
• SFBT techniques transformed into school
  interventions

• Alternative school
• Trans-disciplinary training of all staff on SFBT

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SFBT in School Application Garza Star Walk
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Garza Star WalkThree Components

• Presentation of the students 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).

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Garza Star Walk in Action
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Taking Charge Treatment Manual
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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.

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From Problem Solving to Solution Building

• Keep talking
• Im diagnosing you

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Solution Process
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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.

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Solution-focused Listening

• Attentive listening to the persons 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

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Intentional Listening

• Record the persons 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?

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Solution-talk Not Problem Talk
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Listen, Select and Build Solution Focused
Connectors

• What tells you that (echo persons words)?
• Tell me more about (echo persons 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?

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Not Knowing Instead of Knowing it All
.
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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.

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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?

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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?

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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?

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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?

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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

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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.

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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 othersinterrupt say that again.

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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?

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Competencies

• SFBT Video Example

Photo by Steven Depolo
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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

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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?

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Using Scaling to Set a Goal

• Develop a scale from 1-10 with the client. Refer
  back to scale as needed.
• Establish two concrete behavioral descriptions or
  self-anchors that describe the problem and its
  solutions.
• Obtain rating from the client on where they
  perceive they are on the scale today.
• Ask the client how they will get to the next
  number.

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Miracle Question

• Lets 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.

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How to Set Goals and Tasks

• SFBT Video Example Continued

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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.

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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/

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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.

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Thank You! Contact Cynthia Franklin, PhD, LCSW
cfranklin_at_mail.utexas.edu