Corrections Community

I currently deliver the T4C lessons at the APA Parole office and have been having difficulty getting the participants to use good examples for homework and role play in group. I don’t want to force them to role play a situation I think is better but I am getting tired of hearing excuses used when they are coming up with very poor examples of situations when in fact I know that they are having police contact and dealing with situations where a persons feelings are not the only thing that are getting hurt. How do I get the offenders to bring up the real thinking errors? Or should I just go with what they are giving?

What I do is while i give them time to prepare for the role Play, I redirect them to focus on the skill rather than the situation the role play has for a "plot" so to speak. also, I remind them that social skills are necessary to use when we are ni a risk situatino- that is- a time when we stand to lose something IMPORTANT if we mess it up. this tends to get me better responses from youth.