Question: I am having 25 social workers coming out to our program for a day with the intention of introducing EAP. We are thinking of having the social workers  (2)present a vignette and then design activities/interventions to move treatment in a positive direction.

Any ideas for activities would be appreciated. The majority of the social workers are in the child protective services division.

thanks, Judy

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Answer: Hey Judy!

Thanks for your question. When we do a demonstration such as the one you describe, we'll plan about 5-6 activities (a full day is a LONG demonstration, especially if you aren't getting paid. Just my 2 cents!).

First off, I LOVE your idea of having them design vignettes. That's a great way to make it tangible and immediately applicable to them. But I would start first off with some basic psychoed about what EAP is and how it works. When we do this in our CEU training introducing EAP, we spend a little time talking about the roles of the horses, the facilitation team, the client and the referring agency (when applicable), so they can see how it all works together. So I think some time spent there is well-advised.

Two activities that jump out at me are 1) have them design an obstacle course of, say, 4-5 obstacles their clients, on the whole, generally present with. Label the obstacles as such, and then have them get the "client/horse" through the obstacle course without lead ropes, bribery, etc... That tends to be a really rich one we've used in the past!

The second activity that springs to mind is one in which you create
4-5 tasks for the group to complete with a horse/horses. You create 4 tasks such as "get horse over the jump" or "get horse to circle the barrel once to the right" and write them on separate slips of paper.
Then, break the group up into subgroups, giving each subgroup a slip of paper. No talking. This tends to bring up the many differing goals/divisions/groups that a client must "pass through" to complete a treatment program, and how sometimes one group overrides another, or whatever. It's been a great one for us!

Best of luck, Judy. Let us know how it goes!

Shannon