PROJECT SUMMARY The overall goal of the proposed study is to develop and pilot an interactive, gamified, online, training program in Motivational Interviewing (MI) specifically for HIV counseling support staff (CSS), which includes HIV counselors and community health workers, to improve health communication in status-neutral HIV care interactions. MI is an empathic, collaborative, counselling and communication approach that has demonstrated efficacy in improving outcomes across the HIV Care Continuum (HCC) in adults and adolescents. It is embedded in HIV care guidelines and training in MI is often provided to CSS by state and regional agencies. However, achieving competency in MI is not easy and the training typically provided to CSS is insufficient to achieve competence in MI. To ensure that MI retains its demonstrated efficacy in improving HCC outcomes, we must develop scalable MI training approaches that can both reach CSS working in HIV care settings and effectively increase their MI skills. To address this dual need, this study seeks to develop iMI4HIV, an interactive, gamified, online, MI training program specifically tailored for CSS in HIV care settings to improve their MI skills in HIV care communications. The goal is to train CSS to deliver MI competently so they can integrate MI into all of their healthcare communications with individuals receiving or seeking HIV related services (status-neutral). CSS will be able to access iMI4HIVs after completing a live virtual MI introductory workshop, providing additional skills training that specifically targets MI skills shown by research to affect behavior change outcomes. Thus, iMI4HIV will fill that critical need for additional post-workshop training that is rarely available to community providers. The Specific Aims of this study are to: 1) Develop iMI4HIV, an interactive, online, gamified MI training program specifically tailored towards CSS in HIV care settings to improve their MI skills with HIV care clients; 2) Conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Virtual MI training workshop + iMI4HIV vs. Virtual MI training workshop + waitlist control (N=30 CSS) to: a) assess the feasibility and acceptability of iMI4HIV as measured by the percent of participants who complete iMI4HIV and retrospective acceptability ratings of iMI4HIV (Primary Aim), and b) explore preliminary findings on the effects of iMI4HIV on MI skills acquisition (Exploratory Aim); and 3) Explore experiences (including obstacles and facilitators) of completing iMI4HIV via in-depth interviews. As designed, this study specifically responds to the Notice of Special Interest: Advancing Health Communication Research on HIV Prevention, Treatment and Cure (NOT-MH-21-105) announced by NIH, which includes an interest in studies that seek to “optimize effective communication and engagement practices between PLHIV and healthcare providers.” If successful in building CSS MI skills, iMI4HIV has the potential to shift how MI traini...