Groupwork Practice in Social Work

Trevor Lindsay, Sue Orton, Author

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781446287415, 9781446287408
• eBook ISBN: 9781473904897
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

The social work degree requires that students clearly demonstrate competence in working with groups. Many social work students will begin working with families, communities and organisations before they qualify and are regularly assessed on this groupwork practice through assignments and observation. Specialist skills are needed to cope in challenging groups and the authors look at how students can develop their existing skills to cope and respond to challenges.

The practical focus of this book on planning, organising, facilitating and evaluating groupwork will help students to develop their skills and pass assessment, increasing confidence during placement groupwork activities.

A practical and accessible textbook, Groupwork Practice in Social Work is essential reading to help students through their complex and challenging Groupwork assessments. 

Key updates:

New material on working with service user groups

New material for students who are being assessed in a group

Updated case studies

This book is in the Transforming Social Work Practice series. All books in the series are affordable, mapped to the Social Work Curriculum, practical with clear links between theory & practice and written to the Professional Capabilities Framework.

Chapter 1

What is groupwork?

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ACHIEVING A SOCIAL WORK DEGREE

This chapter will help you to develop the following capabilities from the Professional Capabilities Framework.

• Professionalism
  Identify and behave as a professional social worker, committed to professional development.
• Knowledge
  Apply knowledge of social sciences, law and social work practice theory.
• Critical reflection and analysis
  Apply critical reflection and analysis to inform and provide a rationale for professional decision-making.
• Intervention and skills
  Use judgement and authority to intervene with individuals, families and communities to promote independence, provide support and prevent harm, neglect and abuse.

It will also introduce you to the following academic standards as set out in the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) social work subject benchmark statement.

5.1.1 Social work services, service users and carers

5.1.4 Social work theory

5.5.4 Intervention and evaluation

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Introduction

So you want to work with groups? If you are reading this book as a student on a social work degree, you may be worried about your ability to meet course requirements for working with groups. Groupwork is at the core of social work, but what is it? Is it different from sitting round a table with your friends planning a party? Yes, probably, but in what ways? You do need to behave differently, but how and what does it mean for you? It is a lot more serious, since people’s lives are involved. For one thing, you hold much more responsibility for planning and outcomes. Groupwork and group facilitation can also be a bit scary. Why might that be? Some reasons occur to us immediately. It will be rather more obvious to rather more people if we make a mess of it. Perhaps it feels risky too in terms of being challenged, put on the spot by the group members, with our ignorance or lack of skill exposed. So how do we go about learning to organise and facilitate groups in a way that meets our responsibilities to the service users, our colleagues and our supervisors?

Our intention here is to help you to:

• begin to answer some of these questions;
• understand the contexts, challenges and situations you may meet;
• acknowledge the behaviour, skills and experience that you will need to bring to the front of your awareness;
• start planning, participating in and facilitating groupwork.

What is a group?

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ACTIVITY 1.1

Spend a few minutes thinking about the groups of which you are currently a member. Write them down on a piece of paper.

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COMMENT

How many did you get? Did you include family groups? You, your partner and children? Your parents and brothers and sisters? Your extended family? Social groups? Friends you meet up with at college? at gigs? after work? What about work groups, team meetings, trade union groups, task groups, committees? recreational groups? sports, music, reading, dieting? educational groups, buzz groups, seminar groups, presentation groups, study groups? It is clear that much of what we do, we do in groups.

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We must first start by trying to establish some idea of what actually is a group. This is perhaps an equally difficult concept.

Some questions to ask

• How small or large can a group be and yet still be considered a group?
• We would agree that two people are not a group, but are three?
• What about 12, or 28?
• How long do people in a group have to have known each other to be a group?
• How regularly do they have to meet?
• Do they always meet in the same place?
• Do they have to meet at all or is it enough just to believe that you are a member of a group, even if it never meets, communicating perhaps over the internet, and being aware of the other people as a group?
• Who is it who is to say that a group exists? Is the group defined by people outside it who can say ‘Look, there is a group’, or does the group have to be aware of its existence as a group?

Perhaps it is impossible to arrive at a definition of a group since groups do not exist necessarily as separate definable entities. Phillips (2006) argues that trying to define the term is of little use to anyone. Manor (2000) makes the interesting point that every group has some unique features, yet all groups have characteristics that are the same. Perhaps we can make a stab at some of the qualities that any group has, that allow us to recognise it as a group, either as observers or participants. Many writers have attempted this. Preston-Shoot (2007) suggests that a necessary condition is that there is a collection of people who spend time together and that they both recognise themselves as a group and are seen by other people as a group. Levine and Moreland (2006) suggest that it may be misguided to make hard-and-fast distinctions between groups and nongroups, preferring to think in terms of groupiness, or social interaction, as a dimension along which sets of people can vary (p2). Groupiness, they explain, is greater in sets of people who interact more frequently and intensively, and have an idea of a group history and future. Coulshed and Orme (2006) argue that a perception of group membership extends beyond the time that the people spend together. Being a member of a group involves loyalty and commitment, which arise out of the interaction that takes place. They suggest that indeed members of internet ‘chat rooms’ may well consider themselves to be members of a group and that it is not therefore necessary that the group physically meets. Brown (1992) adds to the concept the ideas that there is interdependence between the members and that some common purpose exists, however ill-defined. Groups can be either formal or informal. A group may be a collection of young people who hang around a bus stop or it could be a committee set up by a government body.

Social, family and informal groups

Our starting place is your experience of groups and for you to reflect on your behaviour and ‘roles’ in those groups – first in the social, family and informal gatherings, of which you will have direct experience already, and then in ‘working’ groups – and to see what makes them different. We will then consider how these reflections might link you to social work groupwork.

There are groups that you are joined to because of your life circumstances. Think how you are in those groups, how you behave, and how safe or unsafe you feel when contributing or getting your voice heard. Think of the behaviour or ‘roles’ that are played in the group and how they affect your own behaviour. Reflect on these matters when you next join such a group. There is no right or wrong here, but there is value in building awareness of your and other people’s behaviour and intentions when in these groups. Why? Because it is likely that you might transfer some of the behaviours, reactions or your unspoken ‘rules’ from these groups into ‘groupwork’ groups, especially when you start to facilitate them.

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ACTIVITY 1.2

Can you think of an occasion when you behaved in a work group in a way that you have behaved in your family group? We are thinking, perhaps, of ‘family rules’ from the past that we still trip over in other situations in which we have to remind ourselves that we can behave differently now.

Now look at groups that you have chosen to join around an interest, life preference or social gathering. How are you in these groups? Are your behaviour, sense of safety and level of contribution different from those you experience in family or work groups? If so, how and why do you think that is?

Writing or drawing will help you build the picture.

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COMMENT

Again, there is no right or wrong here, and the reason for building your awareness is the same. You are painting a picture of you in groups.

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Working groups

The term group covers a wide range of gatherings and forms, from long-term training, seminars and workshops, to formal and informal meetings and gatherings, and personal and therapeutic development groups. The work bit may suggest a purpose. The interesting question is what the ‘work’ is and who does it. What are the factors that enable the work to happen in a clear, supportive and honest way? What role does the leader or facilitator of a group have? Who sets the rules for what should happen when? One of the keys is the relationship between the intention or purpose of the group and the behaviour that results.

Again, you may be familiar with groups that have been formed for a specific issue or purpose. Maybe you have attended or participated in a school council, a residents’ meeting, or a society annual general meeting; think of examples of groups you have seen, joined or participated in with a set agenda or reason for gathering.

• Who decides when and where they meet?
• How do they organise themselves and know what to do?
• Is there an agenda or order of business?
• How do they decide who speaks when and what happens if these ‘rules’ are broken?

There will be a link between the behaviour(s) of participants and the agenda or purpose of the gathering. Can you think of examples of this link? If you can, what are they? Perhaps discuss this with your friends and colleagues.

You might also find watching television reality shows or parliament or your local council meeting helpful for developing very different insights into groups ‘working’. As in the previous section, note your feelings and responses to watching different groups. Watch how people behave and consider the intention behind their behaviour. Could they have chosen to behave in a different way? What do you notice? What processes, feelings or emotions are involved in dealing with the issues? Emotion will be around, but usually not as an acknowledged and valued part of the decision-making process. Looking for clues in your emotional responses will be useful for developing facilitation skills later. Take reality shows. What is the intention? To get you hooked, yes, but why and how do they do it? It may be something to do with anticipating the ‘risky’ or ‘free’ behaviour of participants. They may be saying or doing things that you would never dare to do but might like to if you had the nerve. If you watch them, what is your reaction and does it link to your experience in groups? If you do not watch reality TV shows, why not? Are there clues for you about your experience of acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour?

We all react differently to different circumstances in groups and it is almost entirely due to our own personal responses and choices. You may be unconscious or sceptical of the idea of choosing behaviour at first but you will become more conscious of your choices with experience.

Small helping groups – groupwork

Most people when they come across the word ‘groupwork’ probably have some preconceived idea of what it is, perhaps taken from films such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or television. Generally, it brings up an image of a group of people sitting around on hard chairs in a circle looking very uncomfortable. You probably have a much better idea. You may have worked with groups in the past or have yourself been a member of a small helping group. It may seem obvious to start by saying that groupwork is working with groups, but beyond that it is a term that is hard to define.

From the exercise (Activity 1.1) above, it should have become clear to you that, as a fairly average human being (if we may dare suggest that you are...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the authors
• Preface to third edition
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 What is groupwork?
• Chapter 2 Planning your group: initial planning decisions
• Chapter 3 Facilitation and co-facilitation
• Chapter 4 Setting up the group
• Chapter 5 Group processes
• Chapter 6 Programming and activities
• Chapter 7 Issues of power and oppression
• Chapter 8 Coping with unexpected or unhelpful responses
• Chapter 9 Monitoring, recording and evaluating your work
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• References
• Index