Group Practice

Question 1

Social Work with Groups: Values Underlying Practice

Answer 1

1. All individuals have dignity and worth
2. People have a need and a right to realize their full potential
3. Individuals have basic rights and responsibilities
4. The social work group enacts democratic values and promotes shared decision-making
5. Individuals have the right of self-determination in setting and achieving goals
6. Positive change is facilitated by honest, open, and meaningful interaction

Question 2

Social Work with Groups: Advantages of Groups

Answer 2

1. Members can help other struggling with the same issues
2. Members can identify with others in the same situation
3. At times, people in need can more easily accept from peers
4. Consensual validation helps members feel less vioalted and more reassured when they discover their problems are similar to those experienced by others
5. Groups provide opportunities for experimentation, and testing new social identities and roles
6. Group practice is not a substitute for individual treatment; the group is used as a method of choice for some problems and is an essential tool for many social workers
7. Group practice may complement other techniques used by generic or multi-method social workers

Question 3

Practice Principles: Mission and Commitment

Answer 3

strongly held beliefs regarding the power of the small voluntary, primary group experience, democratic participation and association, citizen involvement, and cultural pluralism

group contrasts with both comparative group methods and therapies in the helping professions that stress individual goals, and the social and community action groups that stress social change

consistent with person-in-situation themes, social workers are committed to a consistent and balanced pursuit of both kinds of objectives – meeting personal needs and goals of particular individuals, and meeting specific social needs and goals within the larger environment

Question 4

Practice Principles: Purposes and Goals

Answer 4

1. Practice is characterized by multiple-goals oriented to solving individual and social problems
2. Based on the recognition that group experiences have many key functions
3. Group types are generally categorized by the types of function they provide for members

Question 5

Purposes and Goals: Key functions of Groups

Answer 5

1. Provide restorative, remedial, or rehabilitative experiences
2. Help prevent personal and social distress or breakdown
3. To facilitate normal growth and development, particularly during stressful periods in the life cycle
4. To achieve a greater measure of self-fulfillment and personal enhancement
5. To help individuals to become active, responsible participants in society through group associations

Question 6

Purposes and Goals: Group Types

Answer 6

Educational

Growth

Therapy

Socialization

Task

Question 7

Group Types: Educational Groups

Answer 7

focusing on helping members learn new information and skills

Question 8

Group Types: Growth Groups

Answer 8

provide opportunities for members to become more aware of their own thoughts, feelings, and behavior; develop their individual potentialities

Question 9

Group Types: Therapy Groups

Answer 9

learn to cope with and ameliorate their personal problems

deal with physical, psychological or social trauma

Question 10

Group Types: Socialization Groups

Answer 10

help members learn social skills and socially accepted behaviors

groups enable clients to function more effectively in the community

Question 11

Group Types: Task Groups

Answer 11

formed for the purpose of meeting organizational, client, and community needs and functions

Question 12

Social Work with Groups: Resources

Answer 12

professionally led groups are the worker’s personal and professional talents, skills, and knowledge, as these are consciously used in the helping process

primary resource for group members

the goal is to harness the power of the group experience to help members achieve their stated goals and objectives

workers encourage the group and its members to develop and use their own resources along with those of the agency and wider community

Resources of the community, agency, and professional association are important sources for additional support in that they provide a sense of direction, purposes and sanction, and human and material resources

Question 13

Methods: Group work methods may be generally categorized by….?

Answer 13

the quality of relationships

the focus on common group goals

the ability to influence group processes

individualizing and externalizing experiences to the social environment

creative use of activities and programs

Question 14

Methods: Relationships

Answer 14

group workers form multiple changing relationships with individual group members, with sub-groups, and with the group as a whole

workers also relate differentially to colleagues, agency representatives, relatives, friends, and others who have a stake in member’s experiences

Question 15

Methods: Contracting Working Agreements

Answer 15

unless members are involved in clarifying and setting their own personal and common group goals, they cannot be expected to be active participants in their own behalf

not confined to worker-member relationships; they also consider others with a direct on indirect stake in the process

Question 16

Working Agreements: Examples

Answer 16

agency sponsorship

collaborating staffs

referral and funding sources

families

caretakers

other interested parties in the public at large

Question 17

Relationships: Influencing Group Processes

Answer 17

ability to recognize, analyze, understand, and influence group process is essential

the group is not simply a collection of individuals, but rather a system of relationships formed through associations with a unique and changing quality and character – group structures and processes

Question 18

Influencing Group Processes: Major Processes

Answer 18

understanding group structure, values systems, group emotions, decision-making, communication and interaction, and group development

Question 19

Relationships: Individualizing

Answer 19

must be prepared to help individual members gain from their experiences in and through the group

measure of success of any group experience is determined by what happens to group members and they are influenced by its processes, not on how the group itself functions as an entity or systemR

Question 20

Relationships: Externalizing

Answer 20

work with groups is not confined to the internal workings of the small group; traditionally group workers, as is true of all social workers, constantly search for general principles in their efforts to help clients

even when groups are relatively autonomous, attention is given to helping members relate beyond the group, encouraging active participation and involvement with others in increasingly wider spheres of social living

Question 21

Relationships: Programming

Answer 21

essential feature in group practice

activities, discussion topics, task-centered activities, exercises, games–all are used as part of a planned, conscious process to address individual and group needs while achieving group purposes and goals

programming does not entail a search for the unusual, esoteric, or melodramatic, and reflects the natural things people do together

Question 22

Programming: Skills in Implementing Programming

Answer 22

initiating and modifying program plans to respond to group interests, self-direction and responsibility, drawing creatively upon program resources in the agency and environment, and developing sequences of activities with specific long-range objectives

Question 23

Agency Functions and General Group Characteristics: Agency Function and Purpose – the Organizational Context

Answer 23

shapes a group’s purpose

worker must be clear and harmonious with that of the agency

agency must demonstrate how work with specific groups helps the agency to achieve its community mission

understanding and acceptance of group purposes and functions are important

staffing decisions must be made regarding the styles of group leadership that the agency will promote

Question 24

Agency Functions and General Group Characteristics: Group Formation

Answer 24

process involves three key elements that require skillful management

setting goals

determining membership

establishing initial group structures and formats

Question 25

Group Formation: Contracting (Schwartz)

Answer 25

presenting agency stake and reaching for clients’ stake

obtaining consensus on group purposes

eliciting members’ perceptions, and identifying differences and commonalities regarding purposes

the worker and the group identity what members are prepared to do together and how the group plans to achieve goals

Question 26

Contracting (Schwartz): Worker’s Role

Answer 26

making a clear and uncomplicated statement of purpose – of the members’ stakes in coming together, and the agency’s and others’ stakes in serving them

describing worker’s own part as simply as possible

reaching for feedback

helping members do the work needed to develop a working consensus about the contract

recognizing manifest and latent, stated and unstated goals and hidden or unconscious motivations

re-contracting as needed

Question 27

Group Composition and Membership Concerns: Selecting Members

Answer 27

worker explains reasons for meeting with group applicants

elicits applicants’ reactions to group participation, and assesses applicants’ situations by engaging applicants’ in expressing their views of the situation and goals in joining the group

worker determines applicants’ appropriateness gor group, accepts applicants’ rights to refuse membership, and provides orientation upon acceptant into the group

Question 28

Group Composition and Membership Concerns: Commonality

Answer 28

members should share similar concern and face common issues

Question 29

Group Composition and Membership Concerns: Size

Answer 29

large enough to offer diversity and vitality, but small enough to provide opportunity for full participation without fragmentation

Question 30

Group Composition and Membership Concerns: Heterogenity vs. Homogeneity

Answer 30

should have sufficient homogeneity to provide stability and generate vitality

Question 31

Group Composition and Membership Concerns: Space and Time

Answer 31

need adequate space, reasonable meeting frequency to promote continuity, and sufficient time for all members to participate

Question 32

Group Structures and Formats: Closed Groups

Answer 32

members are convened by worker

begin their experience together as a collective and end the experience after set amount of sessions

Question 33

What’re the positive of closed groups?

Answer 33

afford better opportunities than open groups for members to identify with each other

lend greater stability to the helping situation; stages of group development evolve more forcefully when the same people struggle with issues of belonging and differentiation, and dealing with the authority of the worker

amount and intensity of commitment are also greater when the same participants can be counted on for their presence

Question 34

Group Structures and Formats: Open Groups

Answer 34

allow people to enter and leave according to their choice

Question 35

What’re the positives of open group?

Answer 35

time and its relationship to the helping process remain constant, but the focus shifts somewhat from “group-as-a-whole” process to individual member processes

opportunities to use group social forces to help individuals may be reduced if membership shifts

the group will be less cohesive and, therefore, less available as a therapeutic instrument

open structure keeps the worker in a highly central position throughout the life of the group since s/he provides continuity

Question 36

Group Structures and Formats: Short-Term Groups

Answer 36

developed around a particular theme or to deal with a crisis

time limitations do not permit the “working on and through” complex needs or accommodating to a variety of issues or themes

worker occupies the central position

Question 37

Group Structures and Formats: Natural Groups

Answer 37

organize informally but develop group characteristics

worker may not easily detect common need

these groups are usually formed before the worker is involved

more complex since agency goals and member group purposes must be synchronized

the worker should help members articulate individual purposes along with thoughts and feelings about them

should examine individual purposes, and determine common and divergent elements

Question 38

How’re formed groups formed?

Answer 38

detection of need for group services

determined by identifying common needs among individuals in an agency or worker caseload

understanding of individual and interpersonal behavior related to purpose guides worker in interventions and timing

screening, assessment, and preparation of group members in formed groups are advisable

determining interest and stake in group membership is vital for understanding member participation

voluntary and non-voluntary groups will respond differently

Question 39

Working Phases: Beginning Phase

Answer 39

Interventive Skills

Question 40

Beginning Phase: Interventive Skills

Answer 40

tuning into members’ needs, concerns, and ways of experiencing in beginning with a group

worker attempts to use prior knowledge and experience so there is readiness to receive member cues that may be subtle and hard to detect

Question 41

Interventive Skills: Engagement

Answer 41

seeking members’ committment to participate

Question 42

Interventive Skills: Ongoing Assessment

Answer 42

needs and concerns

ambivalence and resistance to work

group processes

emerging group structures

individual patterns of interaction

Question 43

Interventive Skills: Facilitating the Group’s Work

Answer 43

encouraging member participation and interaction

getting real concerns onto the table to begin the work

helping the group remaing focused

reinforcing adherence to group rules

identifying emerging themes to facilitate cohesiveness and focus the work

establishing worker identity in relation to readiness of the group (dependence-independence)

listening empathetically, supporting intitial structure and “ground rules,” and evaluating and sharing initial structure and “ground rules,” and evaluating and sharing initial achievement as a group

suggesting ongoing tasks or themes for the following meeting

Question 44

Interventive Skills: Stress on Workers

Answer 44

anxiety about gaining acceptance as a resource the the group

integrating group self-determination with an active leadership role (permissiveness vs. control)

fear of creating dependency and self-consciousness as a deterrent to spontaneity

difficulty in observing and relating to multiple interactions

uncertainty about role