The Becoming Who I Want to Be workbooks for young men and women were designed for professionals working with youths with problematic behaviors toward others. The workbooks were written to be fun and engaging for clients whose adverse childhood experiences and problem behaviors have caused them to fall behind academically, socially, and interpersonally. Based on the Good Lives Model (GLM), the workbooks assist clinicians working with adolescents and young people whose behaviors have caused harm to others (including sexual and non-sexual violence). The workbooks take the more complicated elements of the GLM and operationalize them for treatment settings.

After this training, participants better understand how to use the workbooks in treatment. The training begins by reviewing the core principles of the GLM and then offers ideas for how clinicians and counselors can use each section. Central to this training is its focus on dovetailing the GLM and these workbooks with Motivational Interviewing skills and the principles of Trauma-Informed Care.

The GLM is a strengths-based rehabilitation practice framework that augments the risk, need, and responsivity principles of effective correctional intervention by focusing on assisting clients to develop and implement meaningful life plans incompatible with future offending. The GLM was originally developed as a rehabilitation framework for use with adults who have harmed others. This workshop focuses on how the GLM—when properly applied—can be an effective treatment model.

Key topics discussed during this training:

• Core Principles of the Good Lives Model
• The role of the therapist in using Becoming Who I Want to Be
• Applications of Becoming Who I Want to Be in group and individual treatment
• Translating the GLM’s ten “Primary human goods” into the eight “good life goals”
• Addressing clients’ obstacles to a “good life plan” in the past, present, and future

In addition to focusing on the best use of the available workbooks, this training closely examines many individual tenets (e.g., approach goals, primary human goods of the GLM). Consideration is given to family involvement and how the etiology of harmful behaviors often results from developmental adversity and challenges in attaining specific goals that are common to all human beings.

Safer Society Press published two workbooks in the Becoming Who I Want to Be series. Please click the title below to view the workbooks in our webstore:

• Becoming Who I Want to Be: A Good Lives Model Workbook for Young Men
• Becoming Who I Want to Be: A Good Lives Model Workbook for Young Women

Note: We recognize that gender can play dramatically different roles in clients’ lives. As a result, we recommend that each professional, in consultation with their individual clients, determine which workbook is a better fit for a given person.