J-SAT has been providing training in offender/client assessment tools for over 20 years and our training staff has over 90 years of combined experience to compliment our assessment training services. In addition, most of our trainers are MINT Motivational Interviewing trainers as well as cognitive-behavioral training and coaching trainers. In short, they bring multifaceted skill perspectives into training any particular instrument.
Our training model emphasizes skill-practice throughout the training, and places equal importance on scoring fidelity and process fidelity. We believe it is “the hand that turns the screw” and truly makes the difference when it comes to assessment fidelity. We provide training for numerous different assessment tools (e.g., YLSCMI, RRC, ASI, COMPAS, Back-On-Track, LSI-R, ROPE, LSCMI, etc.). In all assessment training, we concentrate on three primary performance objectives that ensure the participants will be able to:
- Demonstrate more than adequate levels of scoring inter-rater reliability;
- Facilitate the assessment interview in a conversational manner and using active listening skills so that client defensiveness invariably decreases;
- Interpret and utilize the results of the assessment to initiate and support subsequent goal-oriented and proactive supervision.
J-SAT also regularly provides Training for Trainers (T4T) in all assessments we offer training in. Our T4Ts include specialized curriculum development and a comprehensive training that will leave participants ready to not only train staff, but also lead a successful implementation.
Training Disclaimer
While J-SAT continues to provide training sessions that focus on singular EBP skill sets (e.g., Motivational Interviewing, Offender or Client Assessment, Cognitive-Behavioral Coaching, etc.) we prefer following current trends to train the latter skills in an integrated, context-bound manner. For example, to train offender assessment as a process taking place in the first 3-4 sessions a client has within an agency. And part of that process is clarifying roles and expectations thoroughly session to session. Another objective within this process is to move through the four processes of MI in a manner that assists the client in finding sufficient motivation for change re. a particular change target or two. Finally, formulating a case plan and providing some initial skill coaching cement the process – and the foundation for future supervision sessions. Training officers to blend the above skill sets into this 3-4 session process has proven more effective than training each EBP separately, in an ala carte fashion.
