A single-session intervention is a single face-to-face meeting that targets a specific problem and focuses on the factors that underlie solutions rather than the factors that underlie the problem. In other words, the session will focus on the present and the immediate future with the aim of empowering youth to take small steps toward a desired future.

Why single-session intervention? Because one meeting may be enough to facilitate useful change! The single-session design capitalizes on client motivation by providing services when people seek them and without a long wait. Decades of research suggest that the largest gains occur in the earlier sessions of therapy – something good can come from one session!

This technique assumes that all people have inner resources and strengths to solve life’s challenges, and the clinician’s role is to help the client systematically increase their level of change (big change begins with small steps!). We also assume that we don’t need to know what caused a problem to take steps toward solving it. The client is the expert in their life and is in the best position to work toward solving their problems. The person is not the problem … the problem is the problem!