Thinking for a Change

When and where will NIC offer facilitator training? 
The National Institute of Corrections will not be providing Thinking for a Change Facilitator training in Fiscal Year 2024. 

Upcoming and future trainings on NIC's newly updated Public T4C forum: https://community.nicic.gov/forum. You can subscribe to all comments and/or all topics in the forum to stay updated with any and all T4C announcements. 

This link is a map of all the agencies who have people trained by NIC to provide T4C Facilitator training to their staff and region, you may want to consider reaching out to some agencies in your area (if applicable). 

If you are looking for someone to come to train your staff to become T4C facilitators, we recommend that you reach out to the T4C authors to find out about experienced and vetted T4C trainers who the authors have approved to provide T4C training at a cost. There is no cost associated with any NIC hosted training, but if you reach out to a private agency through the T4C Authors to provide T4C training there will be costs/fees, etc. Here is the link to contact the T4C Specialists: https://t4c.nicic.gov/form/contact

NIC offers the Thinking for a Change Facilitator Training to correctional agencies in a 44-hour blended learning experience. The program is provided in partnership with a corrections agency. The program includes:

• 6 Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT) sessions
• Inter-Session Work (independent study/practice).
• 1 Instructor Led Training (ILT) program.

Typically, all event and activities are scheduled within a seven week timeframe. This allows participants to complete inter-session work between the VILTs and the ILT. The ILT portion of the training is conducted onsite at the corrections agency site. 

There are no fees charged for NIC's Thinking For A Change Facilitator Training. However, when attending a Host Site sponsored event all travel, lodging, and per diem costs will be the responsibility of the participant’s agency. In addition, participants will be responsible for the costs associated with printing their training manual and intersession assignments. NIC recommends that two staff members register from each interested agency.

NIC only provides the facilitator training to governmental correctional agencies and is not able to include non-profit or private agencies or citizens in its training programs. However, if you work for a private provider of services to a government corrections organization (a jail, a prison or a community corrections organization (probation or parole agency), you may be eligible.

Your agency can request Thinking For A Change Facilitator Training from NIC directly, with a letter included from the agency CEO of the government corrections agency that your agency is statutorily required to provide services to and/or contractually provides services to, endorsing your private provider of service organization request to NIC. This letter must accompany the request to NIC.

If you have completed a formal Thinking for A Change facilitator training program from NIC, you can use the updated 4.0 curriculum without further training. There is no requirement for facilitators to take an additional course to use the updated version.

Yes, program fidelity and integrity are critical to program success so it is important to follow the curriculum as designed. Following are some best practice recommendations:

• Use two trained facilitators,
• Deliver two sessions each week,
• Target the right clients, these are medium- to high-risk offenders,
• Ensure that each client in the group has the opportunity to try every skill during the class,
• Ensure that clients complete the intersession homework
• Make sure all clients receive feedback.

It is also important that the program be completed from beginning to end due to the integrated nature of the program.

Thinking for a Change is copyrighted by its authors Jack Bush, PhD, Barry Glick, PhD, and Juliana Taymans, PhD, with certain rights retained by NIC.

The National Institute of Corrections reserves the right to reproduce, publish, translate, or otherwise use, and to authorize others to publish and use all or part of the copyrighted material contained in this publication for any federal government purposes. Parties other than NIC are not authorized to sell or use these copyrighted materials for commercial gain except with the explicit permission of the authors. 

For more information, see NIC's Copyright page at https://nicic.gov/copyright.

No, NIC does not currently offer a Certified Facilitator Credential.

No, NIC recommends that facilitators complete a Thinking for a Change train the trainer program before they train others. Program fidelity and integrity are critical to T4C program success so it is important that staff are qualified to train other trainers.

Published: 
2024-06-18 

The National Institute of Corrections offers Thinking for a Change Training for Trainers to qualified criminal justice professionals or qualifying government contractors. NIC does not offer training to private or non-profit organizations. NIC's T4C T4T is a 73-hour blended learning event with 5 weeks of interactive online training culminating with three and half days of on-site training at the National Institute of Corrections Academy Division in Aurora, CO. 

Blended Learning Experience (Online Learning & Face to Face Learning) 

• Online Learning: The virtual instructor led training (VILT) sessions will be online twice a week for the first 5 weeks 
• Face to Face Learning: The 3 and half day instructor led training (ILT) will be @ National Corrections Academy, Aurora, CO. 

Please click here to add your information to the interest list for Thinking for a Change - Training for Trainers. 

To find out more detailed information about T4C T4T including a sample training agenda and pre-requisites click here: T4C T4T homepage.

Thinking for a Change (T4C) is not designed to be used with individuals assessed as low-risk; rather for those identified as medium- to high-risk. If you choose to use the lessons as you describe, we ask that you do not call the program T4C, because such changes (use with a different population or in a different manner) violate the fidelity of the program as it was designed and evaluated.

NIC does not currently have the T4C curriculum available for distribution in languages other than English. Agencies who are delivering T4C are strongly encouraged, based on their client population needs, to have the English version of T4C 4.0 translated to ensure fidelity in the curriculum's delivery to non-English speaking participants.