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Handouts

The TIP Model Participant Handout is available on the website. It contains an outline of information you will cover during the presentation of each module as well as a “toolkit” section for ongoing use by TFs.

Trainer Notes

The purpose of videos & activities is included in the notes section for the trainer. It is important to understand how every video or activity is designed as a learning anchor & connects to the content in some way.
If any of the embedded videos do not play, you will likely need additional software that will play various file formats. You can Google “K-Lite Codec Pack” & download it for free.
The information in the notes section is meant to give additional content knowledge & guidance for elaborating on the slides. It is not meant to be read entirely verbatim. You will need to read the notes before you present the module & paraphrase the information. This will help demonstrate that you understand the content.
You are also encouraged to use your own experiences & stories to enhance the delivery of information.

Virtual Format

Our recommendation for delivering engaging & interactive training is to use the Zoom platform with access to breakout rooms & annotation. Microsoft Teams has breakout room access but does not have a feature to annotate on predesigned slides. If you must use MS Teams, you can do some of the annotation activities using chat and/or the whiteboard feature.

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Rationales:�Techniques for Engaging Transition-Age Youth and Young Adults

Hewitt B. “Rusty” Clark, Ph.D.

Nicole Deschenes, M.Ed.

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What are Rationales?

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Two Basic Parts to Rationales

To do, or not to do something

A likely meaningful outcome

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Why Use Rationales?

Strengthen

Self-Determination

Make Rational

Decisions

Take Control

Builds Synaptic

Pathways

Decrease

Impulsivity

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Decrease

Impulsivity

Make Rational

Decisions

Take Control

Builds Synaptic

Pathways

Why Use Rationales?

Strengthen

Self-Determination

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Functional Rationales Should…

Be Personal to the Youth

State a Likely Outcome

Be Behaviorally Specific

Use Rationales in the natural development of the conversation.

Behaviorally specific: Focus on a new skill or on an existing skill the Y/YA can maintain or generalize.
State a likely outcome: Include the benefit or natural (positive or negative) likely outcomes for the young person.
Make it personal to the Y/YA: Emphasize the importance of the likely outcome being personal and relevant to the Y/YA. Sometimes adults tend to state a possible outcome that is not something the young person cares about (school suspension/expulsion, losing a placement, graduating HS, etc.). These are based more on the logical reasons for doing something rather than on emotional connections to an outcome, which are often more impactful.

Example:

Say this: “If you try to take several deep breaths when you sense an argument coming with your mom, she may be more willing to listen to you and say yes to your request.”

Rather than: “If you avoid arguing with your mom, she might be more likely to put you on restriction.”

The 2^nd example does not include a behaviorally specific skill to focus on and being on restriction might not be very meaningful to the young person.

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Functional Rationales?

Behaviorally Specific – Personal to YP – Likely Outcome

When you let your caregiver know where you are, they don’t worry as much & may be more likely to let you do more on your own.

Learning to greet people appropriately is a skill you can use on your job interview & you might be more likely to get the job.

Making a task list will help you get things done faster & give you more free time.

You’ll probably get suspended if you keep missing classes.

It might be easier to work things out with your roommate if you practice what you’re going to say first.

Review each of these with participants and ask them to identify whether 1) it contains the 3 components of a functional Rationale, 2) is okay but could be revised, or 3) it is a poor Rationale.

Note: Let participants know before you start, that we cannot be certain these outcomes are, or are not personal to the YP, but we can make assumptions based on what is likely to be personal to most young people.

For virtual format, consider adding a Zoom poll to increase participant interaction. You can cut and paste the following questions to create a poll for each of the Rationales. If you use the “meeting template” feature in Zoom, you will only need to do this once and it will be available for all future trainings.

Create a separate poll for each and review participant responses. You do not have to do all 5. Be careful not to paste the answers which are in parenthesis.

Poll Questions:

1. When you let your caregiver know where you are, they don’t worry as much & may be more likely to let you do more on your own. (Good Rationale)

2. Making a task list will help you get things done faster & give you more free time. (Okay Rationale – it is better to say “likely” or “probably” rather than “will.”)

3. Learning to greet people appropriately is a skill you can use on your job interview & you might be more likely to get the job. (Okay Rationale – the word appropriately is vague)

4. You’ll probably get suspended if you keep missing classes. (Poor Rationale – it sounds confrontational and is probably not very personal to the youth)

5. It might be easier to work things out with your roommate if you practice what you’re going to say first. (Good Rationale)

Poll choices:

Great Rationale. This is behaviorally specific, personal to the YP, and states a likely outcome.

Okay Rationale. It needs adjusting or re-wording.

Poor Rationale. It needs to be redone. It is missing one or more of the 3 components.

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Create 1 functional Rationale you might use in your work with a Y/YA

Behaviorally Specific

States Likely Outcome

Personal to the Y/YA

In-person format:

Ask participants to create a Functional Rationale on the Rationales Worksheet in the Participant Handout. Ignore “Collaborative” and “Additive” for now.
Have a few participants share their Rationale.
Provide constructive feedback if the Rationale needs improvement. Consider asking other participants to comment on whether the Rationale is functional or needs improvement.

Virtual Format:

Ask participants to create a functional Rationale on the slide using annotation or in chat.
Provide constructive feedback for any Rationales that need improvement. Consider asking other participants to comment on whether the Rationale is functional or needs improvement.

Note: If your virtual platform does not have annotation features, consider using the Whiteboard feature.

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Collaborative Rationale

Functional Rationale: Getting your homework and chores out of the way early might give you more time to play video games later.

Y/YA completes the action part: What are some things that might be getting in the way of you having more time to play video games?

Y/YA completes the possible outcome: If you get your homework and chores done earlier, what are some things you might have more time for later?

Once the young person gets the hang of Rationales, ask them to fill-in-the-blanks by making a partial statement that prompts them to fill-in the behavior or the likely outcome.

Explain by using the examples on the slide. The first example is a regular functional Rationale, the following two examples have been transformed into collaborative Rationales.

The yellow text is the part of the Rationale (behavior or outcome) that would be changed to make it collaborative.

Whether the TF states the Rationale that asks the YP to fill in the behavior or outcome is completely up to the TF. It should be said in a way that is natural and genuine.

It is okay if the Y/YA does not identify chores and homework as an action, or video games as an outcome, they might think of something else for either. They are still helping to structure a Rationale that links a choice to a likely outcome.

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Using your original Rationale, or a new one, change the wording so it allows the Y/YA to fill in the behavior or the likely outcome.

Create a Collaborative Rationale

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Role-playing ways to deal with co-workers when you’re frustrated might help you keep your job so you can keep saving for the gaming console you want. I can picture how happy you’ll be when you get it and I want to see you succeed.

You’ve already done so well with keeping your cool at home and at school since we’ve been practicing responses to others. Role-playing ways to deal with co-workers when you’re frustrated might help you keep your job so you can keep saving for the gaming console you want.

Role-playing ways to deal with co-workers when you’re frustrated might help you keep your job so you can keep saving for the gaming console you want. Do you think it might be helpful for us to try it out?

Offer

Assistance

Descriptive

Praise

Caring/

Empathy

Statements

Additives

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Whose Rationale is it anyway?

Did I build trust?

Is the YP ready for change?

Did I give it enough time?

Am I being told what I want to hear?

Using Rationales but no change…