How To Conduct An Intake Interview

Introduction

The intake process is your first opportunity as a CALP staff member to begin the journey of forming a great relationship with your learners. It provides you the first opportunity to share information on how you can support the learner through their learning journey, while also providing an opportunity for the learner to share information about their own desires and goals. 

Step 1 - Create the Right Environment

It is important that learners feel comfortable when they come into your CALP for the first time. Remember that many adult learners associate education and learning with their past experiences of school, which may not have been great experiences. So anything that makes their first CALP experience feel formal, even as simple as filling out a form, could create a barrier for the learner. Creating a warm and welcoming environment and taking things slow will allow the learner to feel comfortable and give you the time to truly understand what your learner's goals are. Here are a few tips to consider when creating an effective environment for the intake process:

1. Hold the interview in a private, comfortable space with minimal interruptions.
2. When introducing yourself, use the learner’s name and invite them to use yours.
3. Encourage the learner to ask questions and to stop you if they need something clarified.
4. Discuss your CALP’s confidentiality policy to help the learner feel more comfortable. This will hopefully allow the learner to feel as though they can open up and share their own story.
5. Use clear language and allow the learner enough time to think about and answer your questions.
6. Take things slow. You do not need to fill out every form or gather all their information the first time you sit down together. It takes time to build a relationship.
7. Pay attention to the learner’s body language. For example, if you place a form in front of the learner and they begin to look uncomfortable, either take the form away or take the lead and offer to help them fill out the form.
8. Check out the microlearning page "How To Create A Positive Learning Environment".

Step 2 - The First Conversation

The purpose of the intake interview conversation is to help the learner define their goals, and to give you an opportunity to start building a relationship with the learner. This allows you to start identifying some steps or potential programs that could support the learner on their learning journey. Some learners will have clearly defined goals in mind so it is an opportunity to discuss the information, process and/or requirements needed to achieve that goal. Other learners may have difficulty deciding what their learner goals might be.

Here is a tool that will help you with goal setting. Some of the questions included are great to ask the learner verbally, while others might be better to reflect on while listening to the learner and taking note of what you observed.

Download as a Word Document

Whether you decide to have a formal goal setting conversation with the learner or not, it is important to think about what brought them into your CALP. Here is an informal guide from Partnerships In Learning that can help you conduct an effective intake interview. Similar to the goal setting form, this resource includes questions you can ask the learner, or you can choose to simply use it as a source of ideas for questions to ask during the conversation. While this form is specific to literacy it has some great questions that apply to any adult learner. You can check out the full document, Purposeful Literacies Through Informal Learning, by Brenda Wright and Maurice Taylor, from the COPIAN library, here.

Download as a PDF

Identifying Barriers

It is also important to understand a learner’s challenges. Always remember that adult learners have many aspects to their lives and learning is only one of them. In order to fully support the learner you must also understand the barriers they may face, as there are many things you can do as a coordinator to help minimize the effects of those barriers or remove them completely. Here are some barriers a learner may have:

1. Financial
2. Childcare
3. Fears
4. Physical health concerns
5. Mental health concerns

It's important to remember that your CALP won't always be able to address all of the barriers a learner may have. This is where the value of building a strong referral network in your local community really comes into play. Click here to learn more about building a referral network, from the Learner Support Services microlearning workshop.

Step 3 - Follow Up Steps

In a lot of cases the learner is not finished after the initial conversation. It is important that you leave the learner with information that allows them to follow up on potential next steps that you discussed and continue the support if they choose to. Remember that it was likely a big step for your learner to walk in the door for that initial conversation, so it's important not to overwhelm them with a long list of options or confusing information. Here is what you should leave the learner with at the end of the intake conversation:

1. Your contact information.
2. The next step they can take to continue their learning journey.
3. Contact info for any referrals you made, or an offer to connect them personally.