Trauma Transformed: An Empowerment Response by Bussey,M. & Wise,J. B. (Eds.)

A group worker needs effective ways to get a group started and to involve its members. The check-in, an exercise to open group sessions, and other go-rounds which give each member a turn to speak, have become popular techniques. This article examines the value, purpose and problems of the check-in and other types of go-rounds and gives guidelines for use in a group. It is possible to perform acts that are techniques without employing groupwork as well as to use these same techniques and be doing goupwork. The techniques are not unique to our field; they are shared by all of the helping professions. The method informs how and when these techniques are to be selected, in what combinations, and with what intents (Klein, 1972).