Expanding School-Based Motivational Interviewing Through Delivery by Paraprofessional Providers: A Preliminary Scoping Review

The supply of school mental health (SMH) providers and services cannot meet the demand of students in-need, and this gap is expected to widen in coming years. One way to increase the reach of helpful services for youth is to grow the SMH workforce through task-shifting to paraprofessionals. Task-shi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:School mental health 2023-09, Vol.15 (3), p.673-691
Main Authors: Hart, Mackenzie J., McQuillin, Samuel D., Iachini, Aidyn, Weist, Mark D., Hills, Kimberly J., Cooper, Daniel K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access to Health Care
Adolescents
Allied Health Occupations Education
Behavior
Behavior Change
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Child and School Psychology
Clinical Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Education
Health services
Individual Characteristics
Interviews
Mental disorders
Mental Health
Mental health care
Motivation
Outcomes of Education
Paraprofessional Personnel
Paraprofessionals
Program Effectiveness
Psychologists
Psychology
Review Paper
School Health Services
Schools
Skills
Student Motivation
Student Needs
Students
Teenagers
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Summary:The supply of school mental health (SMH) providers and services cannot meet the demand of students in-need, and this gap is expected to widen in coming years. One way to increase the reach of helpful services for youth is to grow the SMH workforce through task-shifting to paraprofessionals. Task-shifting could be especially promising in expanding Motivational Interviewing (MI) interventions, as MI can be molded to target a number of academic and behavioral outcomes important to schools. However, no review of training exclusively paraprofessional samples in MI has yet been conducted. The current paper provides a scoping review of 19 studies of training paraprofessional providers to use MI to evaluate trainee characteristics, training content and format, and outcomes. Of these 19 studies, 15 reported that paraprofessionals improved in using MI following training. Nine studies reported that task-shifting MI was positively received by clients and/or providers. Six studies examined task-shifting MI in youth-serving contexts, and four examined the practice in traditional school contexts, suggesting its potential for use in SMH. Other findings and implications, such as client behavior change and provider fidelity, are shared, along with ideas for advancing research, practice, and policy in this subfield.
ISSN:1866-2625
1866-2633
DOI:10.1007/s12310-023-09580-3