By OPEN MINDS Circle
On November 30, 2022, the District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) announced a contract with Lyssn.io to use its artificial intelligence (AI) platform to expand the use of Motivational Interviewing (MI). CFSA intends that the Lyssn platform will be used to train CFSA staff and contractor staff for the programs CFSA delivers and funds.
The platform provides an affordable, easy-to-scale way to deliver training on Motivational Interviewing. It provides immediate feedback to users and offers detailed reporting – including an annual report specifically focused on equity issues. Clinical professionals who use the platform receive training instruction, followed by practice sessions that result in guidance on how to improve. The platform allows for comprehensive measurement and reporting not just of participation but of actual improvement in skills.
“Research on expertise indicates that really the only way to improve any skill is practice, whether for soccer, violin, video games, or cooking,” said Zac Imel, Lyssn’s Chief Psychotherapy Office and Co-founder. “The same goes for evidence-based practices like Motivational Interviewing, but getting feedback is often too expensive and slow. Lyssn makes it quick and easy to get feedback on your MI skills, allowing for a feedback loop that helps staff improve over time.”
CFSA is committed to building staff and contractor skills with MI as part of its overall commitment to expand the use of evidence-based practices in its programs, including those funded by the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA). The Family First act offers significant new funding for prevention services, with requirements to use evidence-based practices such as motivational interviewing. CFSA Director Robert L. Matthews said “Incorporating technology into our practice supports and empowers social workers and community-based partners in their work and creates continuous opportunities to hone their Motivational Interviewing skills as they engage families. As we continue our intentional shift towards child and family well-being, we are committed to innovating to shape the future of child welfare practice in the District.” CFSA has not disclosed the nature of its contract with Lyssn, the contract length, or the contract value.
Lyssn offers a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant, cloud-based platform for secure recording, sharing, and reviewing of human services, wellness, and behavioral health sessions, which includes AI-generated metrics for Motivational Interviewing. The platform’s AI-based technologies support training, supervision, and quality assurance of evidence-based counseling, and is built on the largest database of therapeutic interactions of it’s kind – sessions where Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques are used.
Lyssn has worked with Title IV-E Prevention Plans in Utah, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and D.C to adapt the platform to child welfare. The platform assesses 54 metrics, such as “expressed empathy,” “use of open-ended questions,” and “engagement” to assess treatment fidelity. The platform can be used to evaluate recordings of training and of actual interactions with families to assess the use of evidence-based practice. Lyssn’s technology has been validated in over 50 peer-reviewed academic publications, and is used in clinical, social services, academic, and population health settings across the United States and in the United Kingdom.
On December 8, 2021, Lyssn launched a four-year research grant funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) that will focus on evaluating the impact on patient outcomes of Lyssn’s Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tool, LyssnCBT, to automatically estimate CBT fidelity from an audio recording of a CBT session. The research project is called AFFECT: AI-Based Fidelity Feedback to Enhance CBT Treatment. The research builds on Lyssn’s work develop automated systems for evaluating Motivational Interviewing and CBT to evaluate their impact in a large healthcare system.
The study includes two phases. The first phase – which is now complete – works from the existing Lyssn platform to evaluate the accuracy of LyssnCBT. LyssnCBT was refined, and subsequently evaluated for implementation with input from user-centered design focus groups and by working in collaboration with the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, community mental health therapists, supervisors, administrators, and others. In the second phase, LyssnCBT will be evaluated in a randomized trial in five community mental health clinics within Philadelphia. The trial will begin with one clinic and will later be deployed at all five. The evaluation will focus on acceptability and feasibility for community partners, effectiveness in improving health care professionals’ CBT skills, clinical outcomes, and treatment retention.
For more information, contact:
- Kera Tyler, Director of Communications, District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency, 200 I Street Southeast, Washington, District of Columbia 20003; 202-528-9801; Email: kera.tyler@dc.gov; Website: https://cfsa.dc.gov/
- Charity Gourley, Aukem Associates Media Contact, Lyssn, 4209 Northeast 70th Street, Seattle, Washington 98115; 206-706-4075; Email: charity@aukemaassociates.com; Website: https://www.lyssn.io/