Engaging Clients who are Hard to Engage
The majority of clients seen in the social support services are not ready to create change. So called “treatment readiness” seems to be a myth. Yet, most of the modalities we’ve been trained in, except for the Motivational Interviewing Model, assume that clients are in the action mode and that they are ready to create changes in their lives. Practitioners are often under pressure to create outcomes and to establish goals that clients are not ready for. Hence, unproductive patters of client – worker interactions are created; client outcomes are not reached, clients comply rather than co-operate, the real change is not achieved…..
The truth is that it is the system, the workers, who must be ready for the most challenging clients. It is the trait of the best practitioners in the field that they adapt to the clients’ stage of readiness, and that they know how to go about it, equipped with a range of techniques that allow them to respond effectively, sensitively and with therapeutic wisdom.
This is a fast paced, highly practical training designed to teach innovative approaches and ideas to achieve successful outcomes with clients who
- are challenging,
- court-referred,
- unmotivated,
- give you “yes, but…” responses
- are involuntary, or
- who blame others,
- who resist taking responsibility for creating change,
- who change their focus too often, or
- who give you the “I don’t know” responses all the time.
Such clients provide a unique challenge to professionals attempting to provide quality services to both the client and referral source. In this workshop, you will learn what to do in order to prevent, avoid, and resolve what has traditionally been deemed “resistance.” Numerous techniques that are applicable across a wide array of clients and problems will be presented, discussed, and illustrated through video demonstrations. Emphasis will be on “how to” aspects of maximizing the potential for client movement towards goals and positive life changes. The techniques presented can be integrated with all theoretical approaches
Techniques will be offered to create impactful client-practitioner dialogue through the meticulous use of language and other skills in the moment-to-moment interactions. Those trained in traditional Motivational Interviewing will find the techniques offered will take their skills to the next level and circumvent inherent weaknesses in the approach. Upon completion of this training, participants will have a broad array of techniques to add to their repertoire to improve client outcomes and to aid in reducing the stress and burnout that accompanies their most frustrating client-worker interactions.
Who is this training for?
The training is applicable to a wide variety of settings across the system. Practitioners such as psychologists, social workers, counsellors, nurses, case managers, parole officers, support workers, employment officers, and other such professionals who have attended his training in the past, have found it extremely helpful in their work towards resolving resistance and creating client co-operation. By focusing on improved responses in the dialogue between the worker and the client, they reported higher confidence in achieving better client outcomes fast.
Learning Objectives
- Conceptualise resistance in a manner that empowers the client.
- Describe and understand the most common errors workers make that foster and promote client resistance.
- Learn how to recognise client’s readiness to change in order to create better client outcomes fast.
- Learn the principles of working with mandated clients.
- Learn how to use empathic responses in order to engage clients into a meaningful cooperation rather than compliance. Five stages of Empathy Statements.
- Use validation techniques in order to express your understanding of client’s situation and build meaningful rapport.
- Become fluent at using therapeutic confrontation to aid the process of creating change.
- Understand methods for dealing with common difficulties such as “Yes, but…” and “I don’t know” responses.
The Program
- Dimensions of Resistance.
- Stages of Readiness and how to use them in order to engage.
- Reflective and Additive Empathy.
- Five Levels of Therapeutic Confrontation; and when to use them for therapeutic benefits when you find yourself stuck.
- Responding to silence.
- Responding to “I don’t know” statements.
- How to slow down in order to go faster.
- Meeting the Challenge of Mandatory Clients.
- Turning Complaints into Goals.
- Clients as your Experts.
- How to Use the listening skills and actually hear what the client is saying.
- The “Colombo” technique.
- “Client as Your Expert” technique.
CPD Information For Mental Health Professionals
Enjoy complete flexibility with 100% self-paced learning you can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Pay once for lifetime access.
Course Duration: 6 learning hours
Certificate and CPD hours: On completion you’ll receive a Certificate of Completion to support your CPD records.
Assessment: Complete a short quiz at the end (80% pass mark), which you can resit as many times as needed.
Lifetime Access: Your access to the course does not expire, so you can revisit key concepts anytime you want a refresher for practice.
CPD Eligibility: This program may be suitable for CPD for professionals such as:
- Psychologists
- Counsellors and Psychotherapists
- Social Workers
- Community Workers
- Mental Health Nurses
- General Practitioners (GPs)
- Occupational Therapists
CPD requirements vary between professional bodies, so please check with your association or credentialing body to confirm you can claim CPD hours/OPD points for this program and what evidence they require.
Course Content
Meet Your Instructor
Frontline mental health professionals struggling with complex cases - from suicidal clients to challenging personality disorders - need more than theoretical knowledge to make real-world impact. Hanna Nowicki has spent over 30 years bridging the gap between academic concepts and practical application, becoming one of Australia's leading mental health trainers and helping over 20,000 professionals develop confidence with their most difficult cases.
As Founder of TATRA, Nowicki brings a unique combination of legal expertise, psychology training, and extensive frontline experience to her teaching. Her remarkable career journey - from District Court Judge in Poland dealing with family law to Senior Practitioner in South Australia's Statewide Suicide Intervention Program - gives her unparalleled insight into both systemic and individual approaches to mental health crisis intervention. Her multilingual abilities and multicultural practice experience add crucial cultural competency to her training programs.
Nowicki's expertise spans suicide risk assessment, personality disorders, self-injury, depression, anxiety disorders, client engagement techniques, workplace debriefing, and multicultural mental health practice. Her approach focuses on practical "know-how" rather than abstract theory, showing professionals exactly what to do and say in challenging situations. She specialises in training professionals who work with high-risk populations, including those in child protection, correctional services, and community mental health settings.
What sets her training apart is real-world credibility. Nowicki doesn't just teach from textbooks - she draws from decades of direct practice in suicide prevention, child protection, and mental health services. Her work with government organisations like Centrelink, Correctional Services, and Housing SA demonstrates her ability to translate clinical knowledge into practical strategies that work in diverse professional settings.
For your practice, expect to gain specific techniques for engaging resistant clients, practical tools for suicide risk assessment, and frameworks for working effectively with personality disorders. Her interactive, high-energy teaching style particularly benefits practitioners who need confidence-building alongside skill development.
Quick Win: Nowicki's "engagement hierarchy" technique helps professionals quickly establish rapport with defensive or hostile clients by matching their communication approach to the client's presenting style - often creating breakthrough connections in the first encounter.
Qualifications
- LLM, Law, University of Adam Mickiewicz, Poznan, Poland, 1979–1983
- Postgraduate studies: Social Psychology, Psychology of Crime, Pathological Psychology, Criminology, University of Adam Mickiewicz, Poland, 1984–1985
- BA, Psychology, Flinders University, Australia
- Postgraduate Degree, Social Administration, Flinders University, Adelaide, 1992–1994
- Certificate IV in Training & Workplace Assessment
- Accredited De-briefer and Workplace Trainer
- Multilingual (speaks four languages)
Career & Leadership
- Founder, TATRA Corporate and Allied Health Training Services
- Professional Trainer & Speaker, Mental Health Education, Australia-wide, 1996–present
- State Manager, SA Mental Health Training Centre, NSW Institute of Psychiatry, 2005–2008
- Senior Practitioner, Statewide Suicide Intervention Program, South Australia, 1996–2005
Professional Background
- District Court Judge (Family Law), Poland, 1985–1989
- Legal Practitioner, Poland, early 1980s
- Social Worker, South Australian Mental Health Services, Adelaide, 1993–1996
- Child Protection Worker
- University Lecturer, Social Policy
Specialised Expertise
- Suicide risk assessment and intervention
- Personality disorders diagnosis and management
- Self-injury and self-harming behavior
- Depression and anxiety disorders
- Client engagement techniques for difficult cases
- Workplace debriefing and crisis response
- Multicultural mental health practice
Ready to transform your confidence with challenging mental health cases? Discover how Hanna Nowicki's practice-based approach can give you the real-world skills and cultural competency needed to make a genuine difference with your most difficult clients.
Feedback & Reviews
This course includes:
- Lessons 1
- Topics 8
- Duration 6 hours
- Quizzes 5
- Language English