A Follow‐Up Evaluation of Helping Skills Training

The retention of verbal helping skills by human service worker trainees who had completed the Danish and Hauer (1973) training program seven months earlier was explored. Twenty‐six trainees engaged in three helping interviews'before training, immediately following training, and seven months later. Consistent with other follow‐up studies, high skill levels at posttraining were generally not maintained at follow‐up. Contrary to these other studies, however, they remained higher than pretraining levels. Two specific verbal responses, affective responses and closed questions, remained at posttraining levels. The relationship of this study to other follow‐up studies is discussed. 1977 American Counseling Association