Organizational Insight and the Education of Advanced Group Work Practitioners

SUMMARY

This article is the second piece about a group work course designed for advanced work-study students who are not in field placement. It discusses how group workers can use organizational analysis to improve group work practice in agencies with both social conflict and social transition functions. Practice examples illustrate how students promote group work principles in settings where the method has historically had limited currency.     

Group Work Education: A Call for Renewed Commitment

Studies demonstrate steady decline in group work courses and concentration in graduate social work programs. This is attributed to the Council on Social Work Education’s recommendation, in 1969, for a generalist practice model; the growing interest of professional social workers in developing casework skills, including psychiatric casework; and the influence of perspectives from nonsocial work disciplines. This article proposes renewed efforts to strengthen social group work education and concerted collaboration between classroom and field. It focuses on essential course content, emphasizes social group work perspectives, and identifies core social group work concepts and tools for inclusion in curriculum and field education.     

Instilling the Soul of Group Work in Social Work Education

This article addresses the process of developing an educational model for teaching social work with groups in an undergraduate social work degree program in Israel. The model was developed against a backdrop of decreasing status of social group work within the profession and the consequent loss of its unique identity and power in the social work field. The model's aims are to provide the students with the basic principles of social group work, to ensure its place in their professional identity, and to awaken curiosity regarding its use in their future practice as social workers.     

Underexplored Aspects of Group-work Education in MSW Programs

Warnings about social group work’s diminished place within social work education date back to 1978. This article reports the findings of a national study exploring the state of group-work education in Council on Social Work Education accredited programs. Our 2014 publication compared study results with those of the 1994 Birnbaum and Auerbach publication. This article highlights additional findings regarding underexplored aspects of group-work education including concentrations/specializations in group work, social work faculty expertise and involvement in group-work associations, efforts to link students with professional group-work associations, continuing education opportunities in group work for field supervisors, online/hybrid group-work course offerings, links between institutional characteristics and group-work offerings, and faculty members’ perceptions of the state of group-work education.     

A Model for Group Work Practice with Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Victims of Domestic Violence: A Qualitative Study

ABSTRACT

The Orthodox Jewish community has only recently acknowledged that religious practice and commitment does not make one immune to suffering from domestic violence. Effective therapeutic techniques for working with battered Orthodox women have only recently begun to emerge.

This article focuses on the use of group work as an effective therapeutic modality for working with abused Orthodox Jewish women. This research highlights the insight, knowledge, and experience of practitioners who facilitate domestic violence groups, focusing on proficiencies and ethnic-sensitive practice strategies that are perceived to lead to successful outcomes.

The application of ethnic-sensitive strategies is discussed to illustrate viable therapeutic considerations for working with this population. Implications and issues for educators and practitioners will be addressed.     

The Faculty Field Liaison: An Essential Role for Advancing Graduate and Undergraduate Group Work Education

The faculty field liaison is responsible for representing a school’s social work program in monitoring agency internship sites and agency field instructors for an assigned cohort of the program’s BSW or MSW internship students. This article focuses on the faculty field liaison’s role in effectively monitoring the internship site and field instruction to ensure the internship experience is successfully providing the group work skills and knowledge the BSW or MSW student intern needs to be an effective group work practitioner. The field instructor role has been given a lot of attention in the social work literature, but the role of the faculty field liaison has been given little to no attention. This is despite the faculty field liaison’s significant responsibility of representing the BSW and MSW program by bridging the relationships between the program, the field instructor, and the internship student. This article identifies the importance of the faculty field liaison responding to concerns in group work education in the classroom and field setting. Practice vignettes illustrating the work of the faculty field liaison in monitoring group work assignments and field instruction supervision for graduate and undergraduate social work interns are provided.     

Flipping the Equation: The Need for Context-Focused Group Work Education

For many students of social work, traditional group work curriculum promotes the development of mutual aid as the criterion for success in a group. However, a dichotomy exists between a reduction in agency-sanctioned mutual aid–focused groups and the expanded use of groups to deliver services. The contrast between MSW students' expectations and the practice realities they face is particularly challenging for classroom instruction. This article proposes a context-focused approach to teaching an elective in social group work, which links theories and skills to organizationally specific practice contexts. This approach encourages students to engage in critical reflection of practice through consistent interaction between foundational concepts and practice realities.     

Group Work Education Today: A Content Analysis of MSW Group Work Course Syllabi

This article presents the results of a content analysis of MSW group work course syllabi in an effort to better understand the extent to which social group work education shows consistency with guidelines articulated in the Standards for Social Work Practice with Groups. This study aims to provide a current depiction and in-depth account of the state of group work education today through the lens of course syllabi.     

Using Student Task Groups to Teach Group Process and Development

This article discusses an experiential assignment used in a group work course. Student groups meet throughout the semester with the task of developing a major group presentation. The assignment has the dual purpose of increasing student knowledge of diverse group approaches and providing opportunities to experience, identify, and apply group work concepts to their small-group experiences. The article uses excerpts from students' discussions about their group experiences to demonstrate the effectiveness of the assignment. Three primary themes are explored: (1) group development and emerging norms and roles, (2) issues of leadership, and (3) the role of conflict in the groups.     

Remembering Katy: A Reflection on Social Work with Groups’ Founding Coeditor Catherine P. Papell (1916–2013)

This article reflects on the remarkable career of one of the founders and first coeditors of Social Work with Groups. Catherine (Katy) Papell made outstanding contributions to social work—especially to social work with groups for which she was a passionate advocate. In addition to editing this journal, she was a group worker, educator, activist, historian, writer/theorist, mentor, and role model. In the process she became a beloved friend to many and will be greatly missed.