Group Work and the Environment

No abstract available for this article.     

Social Work Practice With the Aged and Their Families

No abstract available for this article.     

Hispanics and Group Work

This article reviews the literature on group work with Hispanics and highlights key practice issues and considerations. A total of 28 publications are analyzed with reference to such elements as group member and leader characteristics and possible facilitating factors.     

Countertransference Issues in Social Work With the Aged

Despite their growing number, their increased risk of mental disorders and social dysfunction, the elderly continue to be underserved by mental health workers. Two of the major obstacles to appropriate treatment and services for the elderly and their farnilies are countertransference and death anxiety. This article examines these issues through the use of case examples. It suggests that mental and social service agencies need to concern themselves with and provide opportunity for supervisors to review practitioners' work in order to identify countertransference issues and ageist stereotyping.     

Supervision in Social Work with the Aged and Their Families

This paper focuses on the educational and supportive functions of the long-standing practice tradition of supervision in social work with the aged and their families. It examines the way in which educational supervision extends the clinician's knowledge and deepens his or her perceptions, feelings, and self-understanding of geriatric practice. It also explores supportive supervision as a means of helping supervisees cope with job-related stress and the ethical issues and value conflicts that are likely to occur in geriatrics. A case study illustrating some of these conflicts is included.     

Multi-Family Group Work

A comprehensive review of the literature on dropout revealed 37 studies involving group treatment. Although these studies represent less than 10% of the work done on premature termination, the problem of dropout is just as prevalent in group work as it is in any other form of treatment. The purpose of this paper is to (1) review the empirical evidence on group treatment dropout, (2) suggest directions for future research, and (3) set forth guidelines which may help practitioners decrease the likelihood of dropout.     

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.     

Group Work with the Deinstitutionalized Elderly

Two series of group sessions were conducted with elderly residents of a group home for deinstitutionalized mental hospital residents. Entitled, "Improving Communication Skills," the sessions were designed to enhance the residents' verbal and non-verbal communication skills and to lay the foundation for greater interpersonal contacts. An evaluation of this pilot program suggests that it did, in fact, help participants improve their interpersonal skills. The paper concludes with suggestions for the establishment of similar groups.     

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 with Families

Family practice is a special case of social work with groups. This practice especially requires an ethnic and multicultural perspective. Such a framework is presented in this paper with focus on group work with families in Singapore. Singapore is an economically developed East Asian nation populated predominately by three ethnic groups: Chinese, Malay, and Indian. These groups have experienced a wider culture in transition, affecting their family group culture. Through use of the sensitizing conceptual frameworks of family cultural reality and value orientation theory, this paper presents a multicultural perspective and applies it to group work with families in Singapore. The framework used is deemed applicable to practice with the family and other small groups in similar multicultural contexts wherein members experience the effects of swift social change.     

Social Group Work and the Challenge of the Future

No abstract available for this article.     

Developing and Sustaining Group Work Services

This paper identifies eleven interrelated elements that need to be considered in organizing and sustaining group services in an agency. An approach to building group services is seen as needing to be both systemic and systematic-i.e., every element of the agency system must be analyzed and assessment and implementation must be systematically done. The paper presents a set of interrelated contextual and programmatic factors and an approach to analyzing their individual, reciprocal, and collective effect on building group services in a range of agency settings.     

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.     

The Use of the Group and Group Work Techniques in Resolving Interethnic Conflict

This article explores the area of interethnic conflict and, based on a case study involving a dialogue group of American Arabs and Jews, proposes a conflict resolution model that, combined with group process and group techniques, might be used to reduce tension and promote understanding among other ethnic groups in conflict. The model was successfully used in Los Angeles to engage the disputants in social action during a five year period and shows promise of being employed in a new form of "intergroup work."     

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.     

Group Work with Hard-to-Reach Adolescents

Treatment of the adolescent population, especially delinquent and predelinquent youth, has been a difficult challenge in the mental health field. Traditional treatment modalities not suited to unmotivated, verbally unsophisticated teenagers have generally bypassed them. We describe here the adaptation of streetwork and therapeutic activity group practice to this population. Focus is on the flexible use of member initiated program selection as a dynamic group work tool.     

Training for Empirical Group Work

Empirical group work practice utilizes systematic and ongoing collection of data as means of making decisions and evaluating short and long term shifts in individual and group phenonema. Guidelines for practical and theoretical learning and supervision are presented.     

Social Group Work with Elders

No abstract available for this article.