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.     

Facilitating Arts-Based Mindfulness Group Activities with Vulnerable Children: An Example of Nondeliberative Social Group Work Practice

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the process of facilitating arts-based mindfulness group work and activities with vulnerable children age 8 to 12 years who were involved with the child welfare or mental health systems. Specifically, it delineates connections between our group program and Norma Lang’s nondeliberative social group work practice. Importantly, in working with vulnerable children, the authors purposefully fostered the development of mutual aid, creativity, and strengths and recognized that each group had a life of its own.     

Mutual Aid: A Contribution to Best-Practice Social Work

This keynote speech, delivered in French and translated to English with minor adjustments for publication, presents some of the author's ideas about mutual-aid practice as best-practice social work. The author discusses the etiology and centrality of mutual aid in social work with groups, presents five characteristics of mutual-aid practice that reflect best-practice social work and identifies four key characteristics—joy in sharing, faith, courage, and curiosity—of mutual-aid practitioners. Similarities between mutual-aid practice and evidence-based group work, practice evaluation and participatory-action research are discussed as well. The author presents group work as inherently evidence based and challenges the idea that subjective measures alone may not be valid in reaching this determination.     

Teaching Group Work in the BSW Generalist Social Work Curriculum: Core Content

In this article, nine considerations associated with social work practice with groups are identified and discussed. These range from the importance of mutual aid and the role of the group leader to multicultural competence and practice skills needed in the beginning, middle, and ending phases of group work. Group work is only one of four modalities that must be taught in the undergraduate practice sequence. Therefore, the nine considerations represent the essential content on group work for the generalist practice curriculum. The author assumes that this content can be presented in a 7-week time frame. In a companion article, the author presents teaching strategies and techniques that assist the instructor in conveying the principles for practice discussed in the present article.     

Promoting Individual and Social Changes: A Hybrid Model of Social Work with Groups

Taking as a starting point two influential, yet different approaches in group work, that is, the self-directed group work and mutual aid models, this article examines a possible alternative for conducting social work with groups. Drawing from structuration theory, which makes a strong dialectical relation between agency and structure possible, this article highlights how our alternative model could lead to a greater integration of the micro- and macrodimensions in group-work practice. The Discussion section proposes three key principles for group work, namely, a belief in people’s strengths and capacities, a focus on critical thinking, and a concern for the development of a democratic culture in groups. These principles are conveyed through the group worker’s roles as consciousness raiser and process facilitator and provide a flexible and participatory process that can be used with a broad range of service-user groups. The article concludes with a discussion on the strengths and limitations of the model.     

Social Work Students' Perceived Knowledge of and Preparation for Group-Work Practice

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to identify factors relevant to social work students' perceived knowledge of and preparation for group-work practice. In addition, the experiences of students in the classroom and in the field are discussed in relationship to these variables. Although classroom and field experiences were significant, exposure to group in the field placement was a much stronger predictor of group-work knowledge. Students reported feeling most knowledgeable about the concepts of mutual aid, diversity, group culture, and group phases. Reported gaps in learning were related to research and legal issues associated with group work.     

Use of Groups in School Social Work: Group Work and Group Processes

ABSTRACT

A survey of 54 school social workers indicated that they use group work extensively in their practice to address a number of student issues. Cognitive-behavioral theories were most commonly used to guide these groups. Workers rarely identified the use of small group theory as a conceptual framework. Groups were less frequent at the secondary level, and sessions were longer. Family change groups were more common at the elementary level. The method of funding the social work position had no effect on kinds or numbers of groups school social workers facilitated. Respondents did not identify use of small group theory as a conceptual framework, but they addressed group dynamics and group developmental stages. They used activities extensively and adapted published curriculum to meet member needs.     

Social Group Work in Community Life

This paper focuses on social group work practice with adult community groups, highlighting the importance of these groups to the achievement of increased citizen participation in current social concerns, and identifying characteristics of these groups which require some different conceptualizations of social group work practice. This paper characterizes our current social context as deficient in the necessary social arrangements for a just and humane society. Thus it argues for a major shift of professional skill to assisting adult community groups to deal with environmental deficiencies, whether these be social policy, resource allocation, or program administration. It suggests that many problems which are identified as "personal inadequacy" may, in fact result from environmental deficiencies, and may be better served through the active efforts of citizens in their own behalf. The paper assumes an interaction between person, group and context, and posits that more effective use is made of professional knowledge and skill through work with those groups which seek to address the environmental context of human affairs.     

Helping each other: a peer supervision group with facilitators of mutual aid groups

ABSTRACT

Mutual aid groups can help people cope with life’s problems. A peer supervision group can help facilitators to better understand their role and improve their facilitating skills in mutual aid groups. Peer supervision groups aim to support facilitators ability to reflect on their difficulties in working with groups, deepen their methodological questions, and improve their understanding regarding how to best proceed as facilitators. This paper studied a peer supervision group of experts-by-experience facilitators to demonstrate the dynamics of mutual aid that characterized the group’s functioning.     

Retrospective Book Review: Teaching a Methods Course in Social Work with Groups

SUMMARY

Eight years after its publication, Teaching a Methods Course in Social Work with Groups serves as a reminder to social workers of group work's historic roots and its value as a method of practice with diverse populations. The author shares her experiences in utilizing the teaching text in her work with MSW students and students of the arts who facilitate activity-based groups in community settings. Citing examples of students' experiences in group work facilitation, the author touches on the constraints emerging group workers face in translating social work skills and values to practice. The author's retrospective review of the teaching text underscores its continued importance in the field of social group work instruction.     

Crossing Boundaries: Comparing Group Work in the United States and Australia

ABSTRACT

This article compares the teaching and practice of group work in Australia and the U.S., including data on both students and practitioners, group work content in selected schools of social work, the types of groups offered and client populations served. Implications for cross-cultural social work are discussed as are areas of future international collaboration and research.     

Spirituality in Social Work Groups: Practitioners Speak Out

ABSTRACT

The attitudes of experienced clinicians regarding the inclusion of spirituality in social group work practice and education are examined. Using a focus group format, practitioners concurred that wholistic treatment of clients must embody spiritual issues and that spiritual content should be covered in group work courses. Clinicians identified additional issues including: (a) need for spiritual assessment; (b) necessity of practitioner self-awareness; (c) usefulness of spiritual beliefs and communities as resources; (d) creation of a safe environment; (e) promotion of spiritual diversity in groups; and (f) collaboration with clergy and spiritual leaders. Implications for practice, research, and education are discussed.     

A Trauma-Based Group Intervention for Incarcerated Girls

Girls are becoming involved in the juvenile justice system at a remarkable rate. As a result, the juvenile justice system must become more responsive to their physical, mental, and educational needs. Many of these girls have been victims of childhood emotional, sexual, or physical abuse resulting in serious mental health problems. This article describes a psycho-educational group intervention designed for adolescent girls involved in the juvenile justice system that have been affected by childhood abuse. The intervention takes place in a residential program for delinquent girls and is a voluntary group. The psycho-education format allows for the participants to gain information about what abuse is and what the impact of abuse can be on their thoughts and actions. The group format provides a supportive environment that promotes group curative factors and mutual aid.     

Going to Camp Together: Lighting the Group Work Fire in a New Generation

This article describes the structure and process of Group Work Camp, an experiential training program sponsored by the International Association for Social Work with Groups (IASWG). The purpose of this 3-day event, which offers workshops and activities in a camp environment, is to transmit the skills, culture, and philosophy of social work with groups to students and new professionals. Camp also aims to connect participants to the group work community through interaction with skilled and enthusiastic professionals and educators. Participants live together as a large group and engage in ever-changing small groups. They learn primarily by experiencing group membership in the present moment, reflecting on this experience, and then discussing its implications. As the Chinese proverb says, “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand.” In the course of this experiential learning process participants develop strong connections with peers and mentors and become familiar with IASWG, a resource for support and stimulation that will be invaluable as they pursue group work practice in an environment likely to isolate them from group work peers. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of this model for group work education, supervision, and practice.     

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.     

Group Work Gets Physical: Self-Defense Class and Social Work

SUMMARY

This article examines how a self-defense class is a social work group when it incorporates basic group work principles. The ways in which stages of group development, member roles and mutual aid are used in a self-defense class will be explored. The article also highlights how a self-defense class can be a legitimate intervention for women who have been victimized.     

“What Could Happen and What Couldn't Happen”: A Poetry Club for Kids

SUMMARY

This essay describes the development of a classroom-based poetry club for young children attending an alternative school, a school-based mental health program, for elementary school students identified as having serious emotional disturbances. The essay emphasizes the importance of pre-group planning, contracting, and negotiating values and norms with teachers; demystifying mutual aid; integrating group purpose and academic goals; and tapping in to children's strengths to develop creative activities.     

The Impact of Time and Place on Mutual-Aid Practice with Short-Term Groups

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to help practitioners promote mutual aid to short-term groups. It describes and discusses the impact of time and place on the process of such groups. The challenges of the short-term group are identified and implications for practice are drawn.     

Coming Together: Factors that Connect Social Workers to Group Work Practice

Group work is an effective method to intervene with various populations in multiple settings. However, research has demonstrated that social workers are often not prepared for the realities of group work practice. In this study, the lens is turned on professional social workers that identify as group workers about the motivations and factors that contributed to their practice of group work. The goal of this research is to provide data and related insights that will enhance the preparation of social workers for the realities of contemporary group work practice. The study also identified factors that would enhance group work education in both the classroom and field education settings.     

Mutual Aid During a Pandemic: A Group Work Class Example

ABSTRACT

The pandemic of 2020 had faculty pivoting quickly from face-to-face to remote teaching. Many of us had to manage this herculean task with little know-how and within a short time-frame. Best practices were unclear given the highly individualized circumstances in which students were now living. Group work within an educational framework is possible and can help students effectively manage the stresses resulting from sudden crisis situations. The key to group work as practiced by social workers is mutual aid and it was this process that emerged in an online class for undergraduate students. It was not planned yet evolved in large part due to students’ capacity for caring, empathy, and connection.