Please be sure you've got your chat working for you so that you can ask questions and make comments as we progress in the webinar and we are about 2 min away from our start time at the top of the hour.

Thanks everybody for joining today's webinar. We're gonna be starting in 1 min.

And it's the top of the hour, everyone. Thank you for joining. Hello and greetings to you all. I'm Leslie Lamaster senior policy Advisor with the National Institute of Corrections and Executive producer of today's Live webinar. Thank you for joining. Thank you for a change five point oh curriculum release webinar sponsored by the Academy division.

Of the National Institute of Corrections. I'd like to share a couple of housekeeping items with you before we start. 1st, this webinar is scheduled to last 60 min and is being recorded. Once the recording is captioned and made five oh eight compliant.

It and the presentation slides will be posted to the NIC website. All registered participants will be notified via email when the recording and slides become available. Second, this is a listen only webinar.

Throughout the webinar, we encourage you to communicate and ask your questions through the chat function like so many of you are already doing. Just keep it up. Lastly, if you experience any audio issues during the webinar, consider dialing in using the phone number that was included with your reminder, email. Also.

So our wonderful group of producers will be posting that in chat as well in case you're having any difficulty. Now, I'd like to introduce Mary Caughtman with a National Institute of Corrections Information Center to share with you about this valuable NIC resource.

Thank you Leslie. I am Mary Coffman. I am one of the four librarians here at the NIC information center and we are happy to help you with any corrections related question you may have.

We are the NIC help desk. The best way to reach us is to email us at support@NICIC.gov. We are here Monday through Friday from 03:52 P.M. mountain time and we welcome your questions. Please don't hesitate to email us with anything you have about the corrections field that you'd like more help with.

We also have the Learn Center and the webinars that are available through NIC. You can research these by going to our website NIC.gov, and that's where you can find the webinars. The Learn Center is where our E courses are hosted, and these are free to correction professionals.

To take these courses, please go to the learn.NICIC.gov website and you can research and find courses that you would like to take. In addition to our, webinars and training sessions, we have a wonderful assortment of corrections focused.

Books and audio books for you to overdrive on our website. So you can just go to the website and ICIC.gov and research overdrive, and you can find ebooks and audio books for you. The final research of database that we have is Epsco host. It's free to anyone in corrections that creates an account on our website and you can research academic articles, absolute.

And professional journals. That's all for me. The support@NIC.gov is how to reach us and I'm gonna turn it over now to our moderator Archie weather Spoon the 4th. Thank you, Archie.

No, thank you Mary, and thank you all for joining us today. We're excited to introduce you to the thank you for change five pointer curriculum. But before we do that, I just want to make sure I go over the National Institute Corrections and what our overview is, and that's what we aim in regards to advancing public safety by shaping and enhancing correctional policies and practices nationwide.

Through training technical assistance and information services for federal, state, local tri entribal correctional agencies in the United States. So I see just in the chat that people who are coming from all over the country, the US territories and other nation.

All around the world. So thank you so much for being here. A little bit more about NIC in regards to our mission. Again, that's to advance public safety, but by shaping and enhancing correctional policies and practices through leadership, learning and innovation. And our vision is just practices, processes, effective systems, and safe communities. And why I share that with you is because one of the ways that NIC is leading our mission through cognitive behavioral therapies is through our CBT initiative where NIC has.

Supported CBT and CBI for over 35 plus years with our CBT initiative. The next CBT initiative is cognitive behavioral training, as it's designed to address the thinking patterns and the and to assist people in behavior change. Now, the running joke here is that after a while, think of a change became the most.

Popular and most requested curriculum, and thank you for our changes kind of our crown jewel when it comes to cognitive behavioral training within our CBT initiative. So with that, with that being said, we're gonna get into the brash tacks of today's webinar. And you're gonna be hearing from a few folks. So our focus today is gonna be speaking with regional Prince, who's gonna introduce T4C.

Thinking For a change 5.0. We're gonna also talk with Paul Drewitz who's gonna give a testimonial on the on the pilot implementation of thinking four change 5.0 Dr. Fiona McMaster is gonna speak around the curriculum design, and then we're gonna meet with our web developers here that our contractors, Rex Barkdoll and Billy Mathews.

With the web design, we'll speak with Dr. Marison Ramirez about the fidelity and effectiveness of Thinking for a Change 5.0 and then we'll allow questions and answers as you get acquainted with the Thinking for a Change 5.0 curriculum. Without further ado, I would like to introduce one of the authors of thanked Ford Change five point oh.

Regional prince.

Thank you Arjun. I do appreciate the opportunity to be able to roll this out to the country. Literally. But many years before that of feedback and input from facilitators trainers, we did focus groups, we ran pilots to be able to refine this and give you what we believe is extremely modern and useful and accessible program. Now, we.

One of the things that tend to stand out to most is.

We have created a brand new after care program that together. What I want to do is take a moment and walk you through the content.

Eight of five point oh. And I'm gonna start with social skills. Now with social skills, we have made with plained language the steps of the social skills are lot more clear. Literally. There are only thinking and your models that you are scripted out for you. There's content for the main actor and for the coactor. And we've been intentional in our language. E.g., instead of saying role play, we now use the word.

Most facilitators.

Where we will break down the steps in a functional practical conversation to talk about what the step is, why it's important, and what exactly will you be doing in that step? You will get a model you will literally do your trials. The skill will be broken down.

Back and before you go off to do your practice work, you will get a functional discussion as to what those skill steps are and how is to be applied. Now, when it comes to cognitive change, we then completely throw the baby out with the part from that dogmatic way of breaking down thinking and action of all those different pieces. Now we focus more on thinking path.

So we've made it more conversational, more interactive especially to build comprehension around application outside the class. And when it comes to the thinking check in, we're gonna model it. Yeah, we expect you to be able to practice what you preach. So rather than just showing the skill steps and asking them.

You will actually do a thinking check in. You will regulate your.

And those outcomes are rated around whether or not that choice will continue the conflict cycle.

If it is, then it's a negative. If it's going to break the conflict cycle, then it's a positive. So NO more of that hashing back and forth and trying to figure out what, where, when, and how. It, does it break the cycle or does it keep it going? And to further create plain language, we modified the steps of the skills and.

In lesson 22 and in lesson 23 to make sure that it just makes sense. We we moved the side on the thought to get you started into the plan itself because that's where it should be. I mean literally, the premise behind this class is that thinking controls behavior, so that is where we're functioning.

That gives you the content for the most part though. All of that comes together in the thinking check in process, the seriously, the T for C check in process. This is our after care program. It is a autonomous application focused, open ended program. The only requirement to get into.

To that end, I want to be clear. Will actually help.

Help them in that situation and then they'll try it out and get some feedback and some coaching from the facilitators and the peers. So again, we've widened the interaction, we've made the language significantly more plain, and we've created a lot of elements to be able to make it more functional, not just for the group members, but also.

So for the actual facilitators. One of the things that we added that we placed into our five point oh that should be the best judge in the end help you in making sure you call the audio companions. Right now, you can take out your smartphone and hover over that QR code.

It's three months from the end of your training.

Now I don't know if any of you were able to actually access that but it's against from multiple people. Beyond that, we have new videos. I mean literally.

So there's NO more confusion around being able to.

Things like polling questions. You'll utilize the breakout room. One other additional piece that we've added is that we put a space in there for additional practice and discussion of every single skill. It's called the Skill exploration. It's the activity toward the end of the lesson. This is where they'll go in and break things down. You can bounce between the breakout rooms and help them further understanding.

Now this is a new concept and a new idea. I will go online through any smart device.

You can still access these PDFs.

In our conversation, you'll be made aware of how to access this through a site that's being hosted by the National Institute of Corrections for the e learning modules themselves. So again, it's all about dosage, right? We we enhance the content, added new things, changed some things around. But the key is to increase the dosage of this intervention. Now, if you've done before, you know the original program, it gives you about 50 h. I mean.

Some of the actual lessons. Well, with this, if you're able to utilize these online dosage modules, even with the main program, you can get 80 plus hours of dosage, that's what we found in our pilot. And because it is a mandatory part of the virtual program, you'll get 80 to a hundred hours of dosage.

I'm, we did a lot of research. And.

So I'd like to hear your thoughts or your comments or your ideas about this is a new thing. We've actually been working with several people.

Yeah, thanks Reggie.

Okay well thank you. What I want to know is what was your experience and after.

Well, with thinking for change, I've been involved in it in various capacities for years and one of the things that anybody who's taught T for C for a long time is there's.

There's a lot of scripted part elements to it, but like you said, there's a lot of parts to it that are open to interpretation or kind of how you would put it into action like some of the role plays and things like that. And in Minnesota, one of our parts just because we always have a capacity issue and I think anybody that has a, that works in a.

Facility it's always you're looking for more staff to teach, did we open this up to bring in incarcerated facilitators. And what I really appreciate with the the curriculum is that really and I I wrote this down as you were going through Reggie because that was a great a great quote was you said the the one of the big parts of this new curriculum was taking the guess out.

So that's what I would say that, you know, what I learned when we were going through this pilot is the way the the curriculum was listed now where everything is kind of detailed out, the, you know, the the social skills and things like they're actually scripted on what you would say specifically, so that way you know for sure everything's being.

Being done the way that the authors meant it to be done. So because of all that extra detail that was put in and all the extra thought and how they kind of broke it apart, they really made it easy. Grant, there's always challenges as you're bringing new people on, but it really helped bridge that gap between our staff facilitators and our incarcerated facili.

Facilitators. So that way when it was done, whereas some of our staff might have been a little nervous about the whole thing just cause.

It's new.

They really, they really got comfortable with it and embraced bringing in that other element to thank you for a change in the classes that we offer here.

Yeah and after that we had really.

Good results from the class and everybody seemed to really get a lot of good things out of it especially and I'm sure you're gonna bring it up later, the the pre and post test things that that came up with this class too to kind of show measurable results, so.

Well, thank you sir. I I'll end our discussion there and I want to ask dr. Fiona to step on the mic, and I wanted her to talk about in particular, why did you design it this way?

Hi Reggie. Welcome everybody. It's such a privilege to be here to talk through some of the design elements. So I'm gonna frame this section around three questions. How have these materials been designed? Why this brain friendly visual design?

Facilitators you might carry the structure, the sequencing, the orientation and the flow of it. We're trying to take that away and allow you to use this material, whether it's online, whether it's an in person, with a physical manual, it is designed for both uses, we are trying to help you there. And it and it re reflects.

It's this distributed cognition, so we're thinking supported by these external tools, not just internal processing. So what we're trying to do is give clear entry points, predictable layouts, and a really strong visual hierarchy. And I could talk about theory, but let's dive into some of the features that you can see on the, on.

The screen here. So at the start you have a map and facilitators can see the structure without having to decode it. This is gonna be the same every time you're in a training room. You can see at a glance what you're going to do, you can see key concepts and definitions. This audio companion, there is a link to a web.

Version if you don't have a phone with you, I can see not everybody has those with them. And the audio companion doesn't even need to be there in the session for you. This is a little bit like a pet talk as Reggie said, it maybe months since you're training since you that you're doing this session. And it's just that voice in your ear reminding you of some of those key features here.

When we're under stress, we've got reduced capacity to think about particular elements, and so all of this is trying to reduce any additional stress and and and limit that working men memory element. So our layout, our spacing, all of our visual queues should help.

Improve understanding. And I just want to stay here on this detailed lesson information. You can see that there is immediately the color blue. I can see some comments about the colors. But the colors are not the only thing, there is a few more layers to this. Not everybody perceives color in the same way. It's always.

To be supported by something else. You will have a number, an icon, something, another, a label so you will know exactly where you are in the curriculum. We're not relying on one channel, we've got multiple things that we're bringing together. We're also having this left to right flow. You'll be able to see here.

You have what to do. These are in shaded boxes all the way through. The shaded boxes just tell you what you should be doing. If you're in person, it shows you a chart, a flip chart that you might have out there. We also have that scripting element, that what to say.

The white space that's in there, it just hopefully reduces a little bit of overwhelm and supports focus at whether you're flipping through a manual in person or you have a digital format. And let's just have a look at one of the script pages in the social skills models. So here we can immediately tell that we're in social ski.

Skills it's just slightly too small on this screen, but there is an icon on the right hand side that will clearly tell you that it's social skills as well. We have numbered skill steps. There are clear roles, speech bubbles, where there are speech bubbles next to a number, that is where your skills step is is is shown very clearly. And I've shown you a couple of icons already, but let's look in more depth at some of those icons. These are the same throughout T for C five point oh, you will see them on the Spanish version on the.

Digital versions on the in person versions as well. So these are key elements that you will get used to all the way through. And let's just look at a couple more icons for the script pages. The script pages have clues to what you need to do, whether it's a slide, a poll in the online version, a page possibly.

A group discussion and whether it's a model that you're demonstrating or a tryout time where the group members are doing the tryouts. And at different time points you may also see facilitator tips from people like Paul and Reggie who have done this in person many times.

To give you some real wisdom from, from the practice room. And so finally, let's just have a look at some of our handouts. These handouts are available as printouts. They also can be digital PDFs, fillable PDFs for anybody who's doing this in an online setting. And what you can see here is we don't have any faces, we don't have.

Are there any visuals that are too explicit, they are supposed to allow people to create their own interpretations of and and support their thinking time. So really what we're trying to do is make sure that we're not just presenting information. We're supporting how that thinking happens in real time.

And in an intervention or a program such as thinking for a change, thinking is such a key part. We're trying to reduce the load that these materials are working with you and not adding, adding anything to you. We're hoping that these skills will be really used and not just understood in a classroom.

Thank you Reggie.

And with that, I'm gonna ask the wonderful wrecks and Billy to take over.

Okay, hi everyone, my name is Rex Barkdal and I am one of the NIC web developers.

And we are excited to announce the launch of T for C five point oh content on nic's thinking for a change website. I want to say thank you again to Reggie and Fiona who have done amazing work on this new version of the curriculum. It's been a delight to implement their work as online content.

So let's take a look at how you'll be able to get access to the curriculum online later today. You can start by going to the T for C website, which is located at T for c.NICIC.gov.

And then clicking the login link in the upper right hand corner. Once you are redirected to the login page, you will need an NIC website account, which you can apply for.

Through the create an account button, but I would also recommend using one of the contact forms on the NIC thinking for a change website and requesting facilitator access in order to actually get access to the T for C.

Curriculum, right? And from there once you are logged into the T PERC website as a T perceived facilitator.

You'll notice that you're logged in by the my account link in the upper right hand corner, and then the T for C curriculum dropdown will show you some new options which will be thinking for a change five point oh. We also directly link to the intercession modules in both English and Spanish here.

And so clicking on the thinking for a change five point oh link from that main menu will allow you to go to the curriculum and you'll end up on this page which you'll notice we now have access to a new menu by default you start with the in person English.

Curriculum, but choosing one of the learning formats lower on the page, you can see in the three boxes, we have the in person virtual online, which is coming later this month, the intercession modules. You can also click on the links there to get to each version of the curriculum.

So let's take a look at what the curriculum looks like. And Fiona did a great job of kind of highlighting what it looks like in the PDF form. So this is an example of lesson three, and then section 3.1, you can see.

The icebreaker icon and label there, what to do, what to say. And so we've taken this print version or PDF version and we have translated it into web content that looks very similar.

We maintain all of the colors and all that kind of stuff. So some things that we implemented to help you out is that as you scroll down the page on the desktop version, the what to do and what to save bars kind of stay at the top of your screen so you can continue to see.

What content falls in which column? And then on the mobile version, we had to implement it a little bit differently. You'll see over on the left hand side squished in there is what to do and what to say. So you'll still be able to see which content aligns with.

Points and PDFs of handouts, the facilitator guide, and everything else that you need to be able to put this on. So let's take a look at the intersession modules and these again can be accessed from the main menu dropdown.

You will give your students the link to each of these pages and the password for that page. So these pages are public, but they are password protected. And you'll see in the, at the top of the screen there's that blue box which gives you the password for each inter session lesson.

And then down below are the links that take you to each lesson. And so the student after they enter the password will come to a page that looks like this. They'll click the start the interactive lesson blue button at the top, and then they will take the lesson which would look like this. And so the.

This is kind of what the initial page of one of those inter session online modules looks like. So that kind of covers a really high level overview of everything that we have available to you. I think you'll be really excited to see it.

Again, this curriculum will be made available to you later today. The NIC web development team is really excited to have you use our website, and if you run into any technical issues with using the website itself or the content on it, please reach out through the T for C contact forms on the T for C website and your concerned will get back to us.

And we'll do our best to remedy it. So now I'd like to hand the presentation back over to Reggie to continue on.

When you go into a lesson itself, there's three unique markers that have subcategories under each one for each concept of thinking for a change. So if I'm going to observe a social skill lesson, I'll start with the 1st seven and now draw eight nine and ten from the social skill part of the fidelity tool.

So on and so forth. And I want to be clear, this is a general tool that quantifies the degree to which is present. It's not a qualitative tool where we're diving into the nuance of how well it was done. We're just trying to see if it was done and then from there those who are providing the feedback and use their knowledge and expertise to be able to provide more meaningful feedback as to maybe platform skills.

Comments about that.

Ramirez has actually developed a tool specifically for thinking for a change. And I I'm gonna ask dr. Ramirez if you can come online, and my 1st question to you is, what does this tool measure?

To address challenges and stressful life events. Are folks stopping and thinking? Are they setting goals? Are they thinking of their choices? That cognitive self change, that 3rd domain teaches individuals a concrete process for self reflection. It's aimed at uncovering those anti social thoughts and feelings. Are we paying.

Attention to what we're thinking, are we recognizing risk? And so with that in mind, in the next slide, we were able to ask, does thinking for change actually target those specific skills, those specific.

Developed by present all. So we selected three of those six items from that existing questionnaire. We also looked at Jurix interpersonal problem solving measurement tool, which is actually used and developed with the thinking for change prior versions of that program, and we selected twelve of those 21 items.

Active listening skills, that thinking for changed targets. I tune into my body to know what I'm feeling. That maps up into the knowing your feelings skill that, again, T for C targets. So what we would do is provide, you would ask your participants to answer these questions and how much.

Give it a one et cetera. So you'll get instructions on how to score these items and come up with this sub score on social, the social skills, social interaction skills. So the next slide, I'm not gonna go through all the details of this because of time, but you get the concept. These are the twelve items, they're twelve items.

Yeah, so, what I'd like to do is I'd like to just make sure I take some time to say thank you to evidence based strategists who have worked with us on this cooperative agreement to, to create thinking for change five point oh. As you saw, there's so much stuff that's.

Your access doesn't change. You just need to simply log out and log back in to gain access to that.

There are men that were serving life sentences that were taking part and not just participating in the pilot as participants, but also being trained as facilitators. And what I want to do is I want to share a poem that one of the gentlemen that participated in the pilot in that maximum facility.

I can free myself even inside these walls using thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs in cognitive ways. We call it T for AC. Thank you for change. And I share I share that with you.