Download Casework vs Group Work

Group Work Practice
Historical Developments
Chapter 2
Treatment Groups: Knowledge
• Grew up mainly in British
and American settlement
houses
• Offered citizens the
opportunity for education,
recreation, socialization,
and community
involvement
• Focus on promoting wellbeing of members
• Casework
historically
associated with
Social Work
• Group work
unidentified with
Social Work until
1935
Casework vs. Group Work
•
•
•
•
•
Differ in focus and goal
Differ with respect to helping relationship
Differ in approach
Differ in application
Differ in design
Casework vs. Group Work
• Caseworkers
• Group Workers
• Worked with and
diagnosed
underprivileged
• Treated by giving
resources and acting as
examples
• Worked with more than
just the underprivileged
• Emphasized client
strengths rather than
weaknesses
• Help is a shared
relationship
Casework vs. Group Work
• Caseworkers
• Worked with and
diagnosed
underprivileged
• Treated by giving
resources and acting as
examples
• Group Workers
• Worked with more than just
the underprivileged
• Emphasized client strengths
rather than weaknesses
• Help is a shared relationship
Casework vs Group Work
• Early Writings emphasized
improved practice
outcomes by careful study,
diagnosis and treatment
(Mary Richmond)
• Focus is on the individual
• Early Writings
emphasized the
processes that
occurred during group
meetings (Grace
Coyle)
• Focus is on the group
as a whole
Coyle and group Work
Group Work
• Shared interaction, power and decision making
place additional demands on group workers
compared to caseworkers
• Used skill to intervene in complex and fastpaced group interactions
• Group worker ‘There are many of THEM but
only one of ME’
Casework vs. Group Work
Additional Resources
Group Work Specific Journals
and Articles
Group Work:
Background Article
Group Work
Background Article
• Social work with groups, 1992, 15(4), 3 -14
Additional Background Articles
Additional Background Articles
Group Work Intervention
What do you think are the most
common form of group work?
• The most common forms of group work are
with people who abuse alcohol and drugs,
with mental health difficulties, young
carers, children and young people who are
accommodated, teenage mothers, children
who are unaccompanied asylum seekers,
and offenders.
Intervention Targets
• Historically, targets included educational,
recreational, club and settlement house settings
• Today settings include community centers,
schools, hospitals, recovery homes, YMCA
• Focus on collective action and democratic
living
• Emphasis on social action, social change and
social justice
Intervention Targets
• 1940’s and 1950’s
• Therapy groups become more common
treatment venues
• Arose in midst of WWII and the lack of
trained workers to deal with war veterans
• Interest in group therapy continued into
1950’s within psychiatric settings
• Social Group idea further popularized by
organizations such as Girl Scouts and YMCA
Intervention Groups
• 1960’s
• Popularity of group services DECLINES
• Job training and educational opportunities
more popular than group work services
• Social work moving away from specialization
and toward generic view of practice
• Fewer schools offered courses in group work
• Fewer social workers used it in practice
Intervention Targets
• 1980’s to current day
• Concerted attempts to revitalize group work
• Association for the Advancement of Social
Work with Groups
• Development of standards on group work
education
Intervention Targets
• According to Putnam (2001) there continues
to be a decline in the number of people
participating in groups and voluntary
organizations
• He attributes this to:
• Time and money
• Mobility and sprawl
• Availability of technology and mass media
Current Practice Trends
Treatment Groups
• Papell and Rothman
(1962)
• 3 important models of
group work practice
1. Social Goals
2. Remedial
3. Reciprocal
• Papell, C. & Rothman, B.
(1966). Social work
models: Possession and
heritage. Journal of
Education for Social Work
2 (2), 66-77.
• Papell, C. (1997).
Thinking about thinking
about group work: Thirty
years later. Social work
with Groups 20 (4), 5-17.
Social Goals Model
1. Purpose and Goals
2. Agency
1.
2.
3. Focus of Work
3.
4. Worker Role
4.
5. Type of Group
5.
6. Methods
6.
Social consciousness, social
responsibility, informed citizenship,
etc.
Settlement houses and
neighborhood centers.
Larger society, individuals within
the context of their environment.
Role model and enabler for
responsible citizenship.
Citizens, neighborhood, and
community.
Discussion, participation,
consensus, developing and carrying
out group task.
Remedial Model
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Purpose and Goals
Agency
Focus of Work
Worker Role
Type of Group
Methods
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
To restore and rehabilitate group
members who are dysfunctional.
Formal agency – clinical
outpatient or inpatient
Alleviating problems or
concerns. Improving coping
skills.
Change agent who engages in
study, diagnoses, and treatment.
Clients who are not functioning
adequately and need help coping
with life tasks.
Structured exercises, direct and
indirect influence – within and
outside of the group- to help
members change behavior
patters.
Reciprocal Model
1. Purpose and Goals
1.
2. Agency
2.
3. Focus of Work
3.
4. Worker Role
4.
5. Type of Group
5.
6. Methods
6.
Mutual aid system among group members
to achieve optimum adaptation and
socialization.
Compatible with clinical and outpatient
settings as well as neighborhood and
community centers.
Creating a self-help, mutual aid system
among the group members.
Mediator between group and the larger
society. Enabler contributing information
not otherwise available to the group..
Partners who work together sharing
common concerns.
Shared authority where members discuss
concerns, support one another, and form a
cohesive social system to benefit one
another.
Divergent and Unified Practice
Models
Group Work Practice Knowledge
Systems Theory
• Attempts to understand the group as a
system of interacting elements. It is
probably the most widely used and broadly
applied theory of group functioning.
4 Functions of a System
Every system, including groups, has four
functions:
1.Integration – ensuring that members fit together.
2.Adaptation – ensuring that groups change to cope
with the demands of the environment.
3.Pattern maintenance – ensuring that groups define
and sustain their basic purpose, identity, and
procedures
4.Goal attainment – ensuring that groups pursue and
accomplish their tasks.
Robert Bales: Group Problems
Groups face two major challenges:
1. Instrumental problems, such as the group’s
reaching its goals. Caused by demands placed on
the group by the outside environment.
2. Socioemotional problems, which include
interpersonal difficulties, problems of
coordination, and member satisfaction. Caused by
internal demands.
Robert Freed Bales
Picture from the Harvard Gazette Archives
SYMLOG
Systematic Multilevel Observation Groups
• Bales was a pioneer in the development of
systematic methods of group observation and
measurement of interaction processes
• His goal was the development of "a theory of
personality and group dynamics integrated with
a set of practical methods for measuring and
changing behavior and values in a democratic
way."
From the Harvard Gazette Archives
Brief Summary of Systems Theory
Influence on Group Theory
• Groups develop properties that arise from the
interaction of the individual members.
• The group has a powerful effect on member
behavior.
• Groups struggle to maintain themselves as entities
when confronted with conflicts.
• Groups must relate to an external environment as
well as attend to their internal functioning.
• Groups are dynamic: becoming, developing, and
changing
• Groups have a developmental life cycle.
Psychodynamic Theory
• Psychodynamic theory has had an important
influence on group work practice.
• Freud (1922) wrote Group Psychology and
the Analysis of the Ego.
• Freud’s theories influenced such other
theorist as Fritz Perl and his gestalt therapy,
Frank Moreno and psychodrama, and Eric
Berne with transactional analysis.
Freud and Group Process
• Freud describes the group leader as the allpowerful father figure who reigns supreme over
groups members.
• Group members identify with the group leader as
the “ego ideal.”
• Members form transference reactions to the group
leader and to each other on the basis of their early
life experiences.
• The interactions that occur I the group reflect
personality structures and defense mechanisms
that members began developing in their early life.
Modern Psychodynamic
Influence
• Yalom extends Freudian theories with an
acknowledgment of the here and now.
• Influential on exploring and explaining how
members act within the group.
• Wilford Bion developed the Tavastock
approach to help people understand the
primitive emotional processes that occur in
groups.
Tavistock Premises
• The primary task of any group is what it must do to
survive.
• The group has a life of its own only as a consequence
of the fantasies and projections of its members.
• The group uses its members in the service of its
primary task.
• The behavior of any group member at any moment is
the expression of his own needs , history, and behavior
patterns, and the needs, history, and behavior patterns
of the group.
• Whatever the group is doing or talking about, the group
is always talking about itself, reflecting itself.
Learning Theory
• Focus is on the individual rather than on the behavior
of groups.
• Learning theory has generally ignored the importance
of group dynamics.
• The early emphasis on environmental contingencies
and the de-emphasis of free will have led some to
conclude that learning theory is deterministic.
• However, learning theory has had an important
influence on current methods of group work practice.
Learning Theory Inflouences
• Emphasis on clear and specific goal setting,
contracting, the influence of the environment on
the group and its members, step-by-step treatment
planing, measurable treatment outcomes and
evaluation can be traced, at least in part, to the
influence of learning theory.
• The growing importance of short-term, structured
psychoeducational groups attests to the important
influence that learning theory principles have had.
Explaining Group Member
Behavior
• According to Bandura the behavior of
groups members can be explained by one of
three methods of learning.
• Stimulus response
• Operant conditioning
• Social learning
Mechanics of Social Learning
• Most learning takes place through observation and
vicarious reinforcement or punishment.
• For example, when a group member is praised for
a certain behavior, that group member and other
group members reproduce the behavior later,
hoping to receive similar praise.
• When a group member who performs a certain
behavior is ignored or punished by social
sanctions, other group members learn not to
behave in that manner because such behavior
results in a negative outcome.
Field Theory
• Conducted numerous experiments on the
forces that account for behavior in small
groups.
• Created three types of groups with
authoritarian, democratic, and laissezfaire leadership.
• Applied the scientific method in
developing a theory of groups.
• In 1944, he and colleagues formed the
Research Center for Group Dynamics at
the MIT.
• He and associates discovered the concept
of Field Theory.
Field Theory
• According to Lewin’s Field Theory, “a
group has a life space, it occupies a position
relative to other objects in this space, it is
oriented toward goals, it locomotes in
pursuit of these goals, and it may encounter
barries in the process of locomotion.
• The unique contribution of field theory is
that it views the group as a gestalt.
Field Theory
• According to Lewin’s Field Theory, “a
group has a life space, it occupies a position
relative to other objects in this space, it is
oriented toward goals, it locomotes in
pursuit of these goals, and it may encounter
barries in the process of locomotion.
• The unique contribution of field theory is
that it views the group as a gestalt.
Social Exchange Theory
• When people come together in a group each
individual in the group attempts to maximize their
rewards and minimize their punishments
• An interaction is most likely to occur when the
reward for an interaction exceeds the punishment
• Success is measured by comparison with others in
the group
Summary
• Historically groups were used for
educational, recreational and social
purposes
• Today groups are more commonly used for
support, mutual aid and therapy
• Theories related to groups include systems,
psychodynamic, learning, field and social
exchange