Michael D. Clark, MSW - Director 

The CSBS welcomes you! Our goal is to increase a Strengths approach across all of the helping professions for work with individuals and families. We believe that when a person’s strengths, assets and resources are balanced with their faults and failures, then a more accurate view of the person is realized—a view that is truly helpful to all who are concerned with increasing a healthy life.

Our vision is to help the Strengths model become the standard for all helping efforts. Our Center champions direct practice, the one-to-one venue in which the helper and person meet. There have been decades of attention to how people “fall down” and plumbing the depths of troubles. We now advocate for the science of “getting up” and how the troubled surmount their difficulties. 

Our focus is on the techniques and strategies, the "how to's" that helpers can use to raise motivation levels.  We seek to advance techniques and strategies--paying special attention to applied methods. 

How can organizations (staff, management, structure, policies and programs) help a Strengths approach to take root and thrive?  Our Center provides technical assistance to diverse professional groups—those who work with voluntary clients and especially those clients mandated to accept services by our courts and justice system. Although our Center is based in the United States, we have worked with and shared with helpers and helping organizations from around the world and invite all to gain a global perspective.

Check out changes to our "Training Sechedule"

• for new (open) training dates (WE’RE NOW MATCHING MINT STATUS TRAINERS WHO HAVE DIRECT PRACTICE EXPERIENCE TO YOUR CLIENT POPULATIONS. ) 

• Check out our "Motivational Interviewing" section for

• a new Center update (Addition of MINT training Associates)  

• and a new publication co-authored by our Director (100 page monograph published by the National Institute of Corrections)

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Our Director will be giving the Keynote address this summer at the American Probation and Parole Association's Summer Conference (Philadelphia - July 2007). "Click on this link to access this keynote description.

 "INCREASING MOTIVATION THROUGH RESPONSIVITY: KEYSTONE TO OFFENDER BEHAVIOR CHANGE"

http://www.appa-net.org/institutes/2007_philadelphia/attend/featured.htm

 For the workshop description that will follow the keynote, click on the "News and Updates" section. This is the first time that "Client-Directed, Outcome Informed approach will be presented at a criminal justice conference.

Our website offers numerous publications for downloading.  They describe Strengths work with both adolescents and adults and almost all focus on working with challening clients or mandated (court-involved) populations.

Many are journal articles, such as these two publications:

(Summer 2006) Clark, et al., “Importance, Confidence and Readiness to Change: Motivational Interviewing for Probation and Parole.” Perspectives. Journal of the American Probation & Parole Association. Vol. 30 (3). 36-45. [Part Two of Two Part Series] Click here to download the full article

Some speak to our mission of offering "how to's" for direct practice.

Here are several "Tips & Techniques" for direct service that can be applied to a wide-range of populations and problems