Druid Magazine

This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book. Updated in its 6th edition, Working in Groups provides readers with practical strategies, built on theory and research, for communicating and working successfully in groups. The authors use the guiding principle of balance while looking at both how groups work and how to work in groups. This accessible and user-friendly text gives readers the tools to apply group communication theories, methods, and skills—helping them become more effective and ethical group members.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Most of us work in them, most of us live in them. Some are complex, some are simple. Some meet only once while others last for decades. Whatever form they take, groups are central to our lives. Making Groups Work offers a comprehensive introduction to the key issues in group work. It outlines the role of groups and the history of group work, discusses group politics, and shows how groups can help promote social change. Detailed case studies are used to make the crucial link between theory and practice. The authors also offer strategies for making groups work effectively. Making Groups Work is essential reading for social workers, health workers, counsellors, community workers, youth workers, trainers and anyone else interested in working with groups. It is also a good introductory text for students and a handy reference for professionals.

The new edition of Group Work adds a focus on diversity and the use of self in group work, an area too often neglected in professional training but essential to meeting current competence standards set by the Council on Social Work Education. As in previous editions, students and professors will find thoughtful analyses of complicated value dilemmas and specific techniques for use in a diverse range of settings, including confrontations and situations where humor is appropriate. Complete with more games and exercises, an updated discussion of values and ethics, and an expanded skills section, Group Work also contains excerpts and discussions of case studies that can be applied to students’ own experiences and will serve as a valuable references for years to come.

This book has two purposes. First, it is fundamentally about groups at work, both as they attempt to accomplish their goals and as they operate in organizational settings. Second, it draws together group researchers from social psychological and organizational studies. Each chapter focuses on a central issue regarding groups as they work and examines that issue by drawing from both social psychological and organizational research. Thus, this book centers on the convergence and divergence of these two fields.

How can groups effectively meet the needs of humans in areas as diverse as aid, responsibility, action, healing, learning and acceptance? This edited volume aims to address these issues and provide ways to extend the current reach and quality of social work with groups. Based on a selection of papers from the 24th Annual International Symposium of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups (AASWG) the chosen chapters embody the strength and diversity of the Symposium, encouraging and encourage readers to "Think Group". Chapters address the future challenges faced in social work with groups, including issues in teaching group work, holistic thinking about groups, team-building, staff development programs and university-agency collaborations to strength group work practice. There are chapters focusing on how mutual aid groups support trauma recovery, including one with firemen addressing the aftermath of the 9/11 disaster, as well as chapters that examine group work's place in community development, challenging social isolation, mask making as a medium for growth, and special issues in addressing concerns of children and youth. This book will be of interest to researchers, professionals and students in social work and human service fields.

Help change the world by bringing ideas of social justice into your group work practice! Social workers who use hip-hop music to reach out to troubled adolescents. Practitioners who compare First Nations talking circles with social work practice with groups. A retired professor who transforms the way her fellow senior living center residents participate in their world. Fathers of children with spina bifida who help one another through an online discussion group. These and other examples you’ll discover in Social Work with Groups: Social Justice Through Personal, Community, and Societal Change will help you to assist groups to gain a sense of empowerment and create change in their own lives and communities. In Social Work with Groups: Social Justice Through Personal, Community, and Societal Change you’ll also find: definitions of social justice within the context of social work a proposal to help focus on social justice in teaching guidelines for group facilitators making decisions about self-disclosure studies of innovative group work discussion of the challenges to achieving social justice in group work valuable ways to ground social group work in rich cultural traditions This new book rides the crest of the growing wave of justice in social work with groups. Culled from the proceedings of the 22nd International Symposium of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups, it gives you the innovations and current thinking of professionals who, while coming from different cultural and professional backgrounds, are focused on helping all people enjoy the same rights and opportunities. If you want to use group work to challenge social inequality, Social Work with Groups will be a welcome addition to your library. Social action that gets results has to start somewhere—let it begin with you!

Social Work With Groups describes continuity and change in group work. It revisits the theoretical ideas of group work and group work topics of the past decade, focusing on the continuity of group work theory and practice. At the same time it emphasizes the need for change to more effectively work with deal with people in new groups in need--people with AIDS, gangs, persons in grief, and minorities, as well as groups always in need but now with new and additional needs--families, children, adolescents. This book deals with how to meet the needs of existing and emerging populations. It shows a good combination of theory and practice of group work in a variety of settings and using traditional techniques with new groups. Chapters in this book revisit the theoretical ideas of group work such as stages of development and the question of self-determination in groups. The sections of theory are the basis for the more practical emphasis of what today’s group worker is doing and how they are doing it. Social Work With Groups is very practice oriented. As such, anybody who uses groups to help people will find much to read and reflect upon. With its across-the-board appeal, persons new to group work will delight in the practical information, and experienced group workers will find the revisiting of the issues a helpful and refreshing approach. Clinical social workers and faculty with an interest in theory and theoretical approaches to group work will appreciate the theory addressed in the book. Social change oriented practitioners searching for new methods of empowerment among the people will find helpful suggestions in this book for social, political, and grassroots activism.