Chapter 5: Social Work with Groups and Communities

Question 1

What is a treatment group?

Answer 1

A group that focuses primarily on socio-emotive or behavioural needs of participants

Question 2

What is a task group?

Answer 2

A group that focuses on completing a specific assignment or goal for a clientele, organization or community

Question 3

What is the definition of group work?

Answer 3

“goal directed activity with small treatment or task groups aimed at meeting socioemotional needs and accomplishing tasks. This activity is directed to individual members of a group and to the group as a whole within a system of service delivery”

Question 4

What are 6 key values social work group practitioners share?

Answer 4

• respecting and viewing all group members as equal participants capable of helping one another,
• encouraging solidarity and mutual aid among group members,
• empowering group members to access their own capacity to make change within themselves and their communities,
• recognizing how diversity in groups according to ethnic origin, age, religious affiliation, and other aspects of social location shapes group processes,
• ensuring that power structures inherent in members’ social location are acknowledged so that collaboration and shared decision-making can be achieved, and
• honouring each member’s right to express issues of concern and share ideas

Question 5

What is an open group?

Answer 5

A group where members come and go and membership changes throughout the life of the group. No specific end.

Question 6

What is a closed group?

Answer 6

A group with a fixed or closed membership, where membership does not change

Question 7

What is linking?

Answer 7

Defined as the practitioners conscious attempt to make connections between similarities in feelings or experiences that exist among members

Question 8

What are the 5 types of Treatment Groups?

Answer 8

• Support groups/Self Help Groups
• Talking/Sharing circles
• Psycheducational groups
• Therapy Groups
• Socialization Groups

Question 9

What are the two responsibilities that group workers have?

Answer 9

• Attend to the goals of the individual

- The functioning and goals of the group

Question 10

What are the 3 primary goals of the support groups?

Answer 10

• Fostering mutual aid
• Helping members cope with stressful life events
• Revitalizing and enhancing members coping abilities so they can effectively adapt and cope to stressful events

Question 11

What is the main difference between support groups and self-help groups?

Answer 11

Leadership; Support groups are professionally lead while Self help are lead from peers or someone with professional training who shares the issue the group has

Question 12

How many people should a support group/self help group have?

Answer 12

up to 12

Question 13

What is the main goal of talking/sharing circles?

Answer 13

to provide a place of safety where people can share experiences and perspectives on issues brought to the circle to help and heal each other

Question 14

What is a psychoeducational group?

Answer 14

Psychoeducational groups combine the goal of an educational group (to impart knowledge) and support. Typically, these groups have a rather structured format where information is delivered in the group’s first phase and then a skill is practised in the second phase to help members cope or respond better to the issue.

Question 15

How big can psychoeducational groups be?

Answer 15

up to 50 people

Question 16

What is a therapy group?

Answer 16

Therapy groups come together to address issues, led by the group worker, who is seen as the expert or authority figure. While members are connected by the common goal of personal growth, their specific issues or concerns may be more diverse than members of support or self-help groups.

Question 17

Is a therapy group interactive?

Answer 17

These groups are typically highly interactive, as members often take responsibility for communicating their insights about and observations of one another in the group.

Question 18

What is the size of a therapy group?

Answer 18

Up to 8

Question 19

What is catharsis?

Answer 19

Release of emotional tension through an activity or experience

Question 20

What is a socialization group?

Answer 20

can focus on learning social skills or can be recreational. These groups typically employ program activities such as games and outings to help members accomplish individual goals.

Question 21

Free Space!

Answer 21

Free Space!

Question 22

What is a team?

Answer 22

A team is a collection of “individual staff members, each of whom possesses particular knowledge and skills, who come together to share their expertise with one another for a particular purpose”

Question 23

What is a staff development group?

Answer 23

The goal of staff development groups is the improvement of service provision by developing and updating workers’ skills. Development groups provide workers with opportunities to learn about new treatment approaches, resources, and community services, practise new skills, and review and learn from their previous work with clients.

Question 24

What is a committee?

Answer 24

A committee is a group of people appointed or elected with a particular charge.

Question 25

What is a social action group?

Answer 25

Social action groups consist of community members who get together or are brought together to advocate for a particular social issue that affects individuals but also has applicability in the broader community. Social action groups can also be called grassroots groups as they grow from the concerns of community members who occupy marginalized positions. Goals of social action groups could include “making fundamental changes in the community, such as the redistribution of resources and gaining access to decision-making for marginal groups, and changing legislative mandates, policies, and practices of institutions

Question 26

What is social capital?

Answer 26

Refers to “features of social organizations such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit”

Question 27

What are the 5 stages of group development?

Answer 27

1. testing and dependence;
2. intragroup conflict;
3. development of group cohesion; and
4. functional role-relatedness.
5. Acknowledge the evaluation and termination

Question 28

What are the 5 catchy stages of group development?

Answer 28

• forming,
• storming,
• norming,
• performing,
• adjoining

Question 29

What is cohesion and what happens if a group lacks it?

Answer 29

Cohesion generally refers to a sense of belonging shared by a group of people who feel accepted by each other. Without cohesion, the group may disband without achieving its goals. A group leader can facilitate cohesion by helping a group of strangers evolve into a group bound together by a sense of unity around a common focus on a particular issue

Question 30

What is the first stage of testing and dependence/forming?

Answer 30

This first stage is characterized by context setting, which includes a discussion and clarification of group purpose, relationship-building, and boundary setting.

Question 31

What is the second stage of intragroup conflict/storming?

Answer 31

This is a natural stage in a group’s life, where “facades and personas give way to more honest views of others, and group members begin to take intra- and interpersonal risks in the form of feedback and deeper sharing of self”

Question 32

What is the third stage development of cohesion/norming?

Answer 32

the group has developed greater cohesion and optimism that members will be able to accomplish their goals

Question 33

What is the fourth stage functional role readiness/performing?

Answer 33

the group members focus on the work that brought them to the group. At this point, the group leader may be able to pull back from the leadership position, with more members taking responsibility for facilitation and the work that is occurring in the group.

Question 34

What is the fifth stage adjourning?

Answer 34

Although endings are a foreseeable outcome in a group—whether the group ends or the member leaves—endings should include the processing of the socio-emotional life of the group and feelings of attachment that members may have to other group members, the group leader, and the group itself.

Question 35

What is the interactional model?

Answer 35

A model where leadership is not the exclusive domain of the leader but is shared among the members as an empowering function

Question 36

How can community be defined? 4

Answer 36

• geography,
• identity,
• interest, or
• any integration of the three

Question 37

What are the four assumptions from community practitioners?

Answer 37

• Economic and social injustice stems from the failure of the larger society to assist all individuals in meeting their potential.
• All members of a community have the right to participate directly in decisions that affect them.
• When provided with information, citizens will participate in the decision-making process.
• Failure of members of a community to participate in the democratic process may be due to their lack of knowledge about the process, injustices that disenfranchise them, or discomfort with participating due to histories of exclusion.

Question 38

What are Rothmans three modes of community social work practice?

Answer 38

• Locality development
• Social planning
• Social action

Question 39

What is locality development mode of community practice?

Answer 39

The focus of the approach is to engage a wide variety of community members to plan, employ, and evaluate an intervention, which contributes to sustainable change.

Question 40

What are the central themes to community practice?

Answer 40

• Following democratic procedures,
• Recruiting community-based volunteers
• Supporting the development of leadership from community
• advancing educational objectives in community

Question 41

What is the social planning of community practice focused on?

Answer 41

• Technical aspects of problem
• Analysys of statistical data
• needs assessment
• community based evaluations

Question 42

What are goals of social planning? 6

Answer 42

• conceptualizing,
• selecting,
• establishing,
• arranging, and
• delivering goods and services to people who need them
• fostering collaboration among agencies to avoid duplication and filling in gaps in services”