Article Book Groups In Social Work Education: A Method For .
Title: Book groups in social work education; a method for modelling groupworkpracticeAbstract:The use of book groups as a learning medium in social work education hasevolved rapidly over the last few years, with universities and practice settings acrossthe UK and beyond adopting the approach to supplement traditional teaching methods(Taylor, 2014). Where employed, student social workers and practitioners have foundbook groups to be effective for consolidating understandings that support professionaldevelopment. Thus far, however their use within modules of learning as a means todemonstrating groupwork practice has not been fully realised. The following accountproposes a teaching approach which is twofold in nature. On the one hand it engagesstudents, within their initial social work training, in a group experience and on theother, through the group, makes explicit the knowledge and skills essential to effectivegroupwork for practice. This paper discusses the use of book groups on an Englishuniversity social work course and their application in practice. . .Keywords: book groups, groupwork, social work education, teaching, learning,student social workersWord Count: 4 3661 Page
IntroductionAs a student social worker I was intrigued by systems and groupwork.Groupwork was not high on the agenda throughout my professional social worktraining and education. Indeed, whenever I mentioned it I was met with commentssuch as, ‘you don’t want to do that’, ‘it is incredibly hard to do you know’, ‘it takes alot of skill’, ‘it’s a dated approach’ etc. However, when tasked to write about an‘appropriate’ method of intervention for a preparation for practice module, using anapproach of our choice, you can guess what came up. I viewed this piece of work asthe perfect opportunity to explore groups and groupwork much further and toinvestigate the dominance of individual work that seemed to saturate my learningexperience. Reading my social work Bible of the time Coulshed and Orme’s (1998)‘Social Work Practice’ led me to think much more about how groups and thegroupwork process could form part of my knowledge base for practice. I then cameacross Benson’s (2000) ‘Working Creatively with Groups’ a text that outlined notionslike resourcefulness and the power within the group to effect change. These writersand many more fuelled my curiosity and left me with desire to put this method ofintervention into practice. It just made so much sense for me to think about the way inwhich a system works, particularly when the system is a human system presenting withwhat (Benson, 2000) refers to as a common need.Where my student peers would shy away from the very thought of constructing anintervention using the groupwork methodology I would be seeking these opportunitiesout. Practice Educators whose job it was to 'manage' my learning would sigh at themention of yet another group; but thankfully they tolerated the various rationale2 Page
presented, which of course was always service-use focussed and underpinned by avalue-base that sought to promote self-actualisation and self-determination. I am quiteproud to report that even though I appreciate the value and the appropriateness ofindividual work I always had a gravitational pull towards groupwork, where relevant.Few of my student peer group at the time shared my enthusiasm and passion, preferringindividual work over groupwork, even when groupwork had the potential to shapeservice-users outcomes in a manner that naturally gave them the power and context toaffect the change they saw as necessary to their actualisation.When I became a social work educator I sought ways to use groupwork in myteaching and also offer the opportunity to students to develop groupwork skills andconfidence so they in turn might consider groupwork as a social work method.Oneof the ways in which I have done this is through book groups as a teaching and learningmethodology. This is an approach to educating future social work practitioners thatuses fiction to reflect on and consolidate knowledge across the capabilities for practice.The success of book group rests mainly within its context - the group.Book groups in social work educationBook groups in social work education is an approach to educating future social workpractitioners that uses fiction to reflect on and consolidate knowledge across thecapabilities for practice. The success of book group rests mainly within its context the group.3 Page
BackgroundThe use of book groups as a teaching and learning medium is somewhat newin social work education (Taylor, 2014 cited in Westwood, 2014; Scourfield andTaylor, 2013), yet there are numerous accounts of their significance and successeswithin the popularist context (Hartley, 2002). Whether in education or for leisure thereading of fiction affords readers with an opportunity to engage with the fictive realitiesof the other (Taylor, 2015 cited in Brewer and Hogarth, 2015). Through fiction readerscan gain insights into the lives of characters and the array of circumstances they findthemselves within; insights that are not always directly available through curriculumcontent. Thus fiction as a medium can facilitate access to a breadth of knowing that isimpossible to cover within the scope of initial social work training. Indeed, it isunrealistic to expect that professional socialisation could ever capture the infinite rangeof human experiences that practitioners may encounter once qualified. Therefore,using fiction in social work education is worthy of consideration given that more oftenthan not the stories read are uniquely different to one’s own.In addition to the benefits ofreading fiction are the advantages of doing so within a group, where the sharing ofrealisations and understandings prompts analysis and promotes reflection. The learningpotential available within the group increases the more readers reveal. Integral to agroup discussion are what students and practitioners describe as intra and inter-personalexchanges. Group discussions can evoke internal dialogue that is additional to theinterpersonal dialogue being had with the other group members. Not only do readersengage with the fictive realities of the characters they also interact with their ownrealities and those of the other group members. In total, through the book group4 Page
experience, knowledge is revisited, actively applied and made available through thatwhich is shared by group members within the group discussion.The following excerpts are taken from a range of video blogs recorded tocapture the essence of book group from the student perspective:‘It [book group] gives you the time and space to practice applying theories’,‘I was thinking through different lenses’,‘It helped me to see how theory relates to real life situations’,‘I was able to hear how other students think and learned so much from theway they looked at the book, like it was a real case’,‘I couldn’t believe that I could learn so much through reading anddiscussing fiction’(Taylor, 2015, n.p).The student accounts above highlight the range of learning available within thisgroup learning activity. Consistent with these accounts are the accounts of practitionerswhose reflections mirror those of the students in terms of learning potential:‘These conversations are really powerful in helping us to reflect’,‘I can step back a bit more and be more honest’,‘One sentence can be interpreted in so many different ways – it [bookgroup] brings in so many perspectives’‘It [book group] gives me time to stop and think’,‘The book made me realise how desensitised I have become’(Triggs, 2015; Child, 2015).5 Page
Implicit within these rich descriptions is evidence of the impact of applyingcore concepts, in a group context, from across the social work curriculum to fictiverealities. Evidence points to how book groups can create learning environments wherewe can become familiar with the unfamiliar, comfortable with the uncomfortable andrealistic about that which is often perceived as unrealistic (Howard, 2009). Thus, usingthe group discussion as a learning device is highly compatible with the creation oflearning spaces that stimulate knowledge acquisition through experiential analysis. Asacknowledged by Froggett, et al. (2014)‘this kind of training, [experiential], provides a psychosocial support topractitioners who must develop emotional literacy and resilience along with anability to appraise and critique institutional and political structures. Itsaim, in short, is to help [students] think the ‘psycho’ and the ‘social’ together(p. 14).Even though there is clear indication of professional development and evidenceof the potential available within a book group to generate learning and reflection, directreference to the notion of group or group process rarely considered; as can be see in thestudent and practitioner feedback above. This is slightly surprising when one thinksabout Shulman’s (1987) description of the classroom as ‘a powerful force for effectivelearning (p.3), but then perhaps unsurprising when reflecting upon the work ofClements’s (2008) which acknowledges a steady ‘decline’ (p.330) in the teaching ofgroupwork practice in social work education and training. It does however, resonatewith what Fleming and Ward (2013) discuss as the ‘evaporation’ (p.61) of groupworkin practice more broadly; highlighting how groupwork has almost gone out of fashionor off the agenda in favour of individual work.6 Page
Despite the fact that student and practitioner feedback reflects a level ofconsciousness regarding the learning that is occurring and an awareness that thislearning is occurring within group, the group as a living organism to a larger extentrequires acknowledgement.In addition it can provide further evidence of theappropriateness of taking advantage of book groups as a means to illuminating andmodelling groupwork for social work practice. Such modelling also would demonstratethe knowledge, values and skills necessary to facilitate a group and also the principlesand understandings required to replicate book groups as a practice intervention. It iswithin this article that a rationale for the modelling and the tenets of book groups insocial work are presented.Popularist Reading groups: a template for learning?Book groups, or reading groups as they are sometimes referred to, as acollective leisure activity, continue to generate interest and create cause for comment(Hall, 2003; Higgins, 2005; Knochar Farr and Harker, 2009); implying an appeal, adurability and a widespread membership. They were popularised by the Americancelebrity Oprah Winfrey in the mid-nineties when she incorporated a book group intoher television show (Rooney, 2005). Irrespective of this exposure, book groups haveexisted in many guises throughout human history and can be understood as operatingin any context where a group of people have agreed to assemble and discuss theirthoughts about a previously agreed, normally fictional, text (Long, 2003).A survey by academics Hartley and Turvey, who were interested in finding outabout ‘reading groups’ in non-academic settings, sought to collate information about7 Page
the construct, usage, duration and content of such groups (Hartley, 2002 p.viii). Totheir surprise they found approximately ‘50,000’ book groups in the UK and cite aknowledge of approximately ‘500,000’ in the USA (p.vii). In addition, the volume ofgroups that existed at the time their findings also contained an incredible degree ofcomplexity in what at first glance might appear to be an unexceptional or commonplaceactivity. It is this point that is significant with regards to social work education in termsof the construct of groupings and their frequency.Hartley and Turvey heard from men’s reading groups, children’s readinggroups, groups led by politician’s in residential homes for older adults, rural readinggroups, psychotherapeutic reading groups, lesbian and gay reading groups,neighbourhood reading groups, reading groups in prisons and groups for those whohave a visual impairment, coexisting mother and children groups. Interestingly, andnotable is the diversity that they found across the groups, diversity synonymous withthe groupings familiar to social work practice, where commonality of need (Benson,2000) meets with service provision,. One of the main outcomes of their work was thedevelopment of the reading groups in prisons initiative, the success of which issubstantiated by the volume of groups that remain in place (Hartley and Turvey, 2013).Thinking about the content and context of these groupings simultaneous to howfiction was being used in social work education led me to explore the potential of bookgroups in training for social work practice. I was interested to consider how learningin this context could assist students to consider the power within a group to addresscommon need (Benson, 2000) and to reflect on the applicability of the process acrossa range of service user groups.8 Page
Book groups: Learning about groupwork experientiallyIn this paper I build upon the original book group idea (Scourfield and Taylor, 2014)outline earlier in this work, considering the ways in which book groups function as agroup and how this functioning could be made explicit to the students as theyexperience it within a module-based learning event.It became evident whilstfacilitating book groups that students could be helped to not only understand groupworkskills and principles but to also consider themselves as future groupwork practitioners.In of the light of this, as a starting point, the following module aims are suggested. to outline book group as a method of intervention, taught through anexperiential group within which the student is an active participant. to demonstrate group facilitation, making reference to groupwork skillsthroughout. to appraise readiness for practice as a groupwork practitioner through theassessment of a reflective narrative.Given the types of learning that can be accessed within a book group, modulespertaining to readiness to practice might be the most suitable context for educatorsconsidering this approach.Central to the book group experience are phases, replicating those more generallyaccepted or known as the ‘groupwork process’. The initial planning stages through tothe ending, as outlined in the table below, should be made clear to the student groupfrom the outset. When discussing the facilitation of groupwork in practice Lindsay andOrton (2014) refer to ‘principle tasks’ which they summarise as ‘planning the group,9 Page
intervening in the group, monitoring the group, maintaining the group’ (p.19). Theseare useful points of reference for educators when drafting lesson plans for this teachingmethod, alongside constructing the necessary links for the students to groupworktheory and practice throughout the duration of the group.Acknowledging and making known the type, purpose, duration and possibledynamics that exist as a group first convenes is the starting point for the facilitation ofa learning space that aims to explain and demonstrate groupwork as a practiceapproach. A productive learning environment will need to be developed that in its ownright will require sensitive management through the skilful use of the educator’sgroupwork skills. Educators should explicitly contextualise learners as a ‘group;’ awhole which is more than the sum of its parts and creates an energy of its own. Indeed,Lewin (1951) acknowledges this in his definition of a ‘group’ stating, ‘conceiving agroup as a dynamic whole should include a definition of group that is based oninterdependence of the members (or better, the subparts of the group)’ (p.146). Makingexplicit that which is implicit and stating the unstated will give the group a sense ofresponsibility and illuminate the distinctiveness of each individual group member andtheir role and impact within the whole. It will also be necessary to confirm the group’scommon goals and define ground rules, in essence an exercise that equates to group‘contracting’ (Preston-Shoot, 1990 p.48).Throughout the life of the group it will be essential for the educator to identifyhappenings that form opportunities to reflect back to group members the dynamicsoccurring within the group; setting these experiences within the theoretical groupworkcontext and making reference to application in practice. The table below outlines thegroupwork process from a teaching perspective; making it clear how the learning will10 P a g e
be facilitated and how, then, the tenets highlighted are comparable to that of thegroupwork practice approach.Groupwork (Theoretical context)Book group (Education context)Planning, Preparation, Group Programme Leadership, Facilitation & Skills Contracting, Group Process Beginning, Middle, End (Groupwork Sessions) EvaluationBook Group: A Teaching and Learning Template11 P a g e Educator chooses a fictional text(module / subject specific)Educator outlines the book groupprogramme in the module handbook(week, portion of the text, overalllearning objectives)Educator identifies knowledge,values, skills as a structure forengaging with the textEducator engages in preparatoryannotation of the text - highlightingportions most relevant to the moduleaimsEducator facilitates the teachingspace for the duration of the groupEducator employs a range of teachingand learning strategies, whichincludes attention to diversity in thestudent group, learning styles, aimsand objectivesEducator demonstratescommunication skills appropriate togroupwork as a practice approachEducator explicitly employs groupmanagement techniquesEducator begins by agreeing grouprules (returns to these each session)Educator highlights the group processand elements of the same (dynamics,group roles, skills) – it is useful toreturn to the elements of the groupprocess as appropriate to the learninguntil embeddedBeginnings – outline in each sessionwhere the group is at in terms ofobjectives and timeframe; also allowtime for group member ‘check-in’Middle – outline work phase (weeklyand as a whole)Ending – closure (weekly and finallyat the last session) ‘check-out’On-going and on completion
The success of this teaching method depends on whether each student, as agroup member, experiences the group, in a relational sense, through a collaborativeprocess where objectives are achieved both at an individual and at group level. Doeland Kelly (2014) emphasise the benefits of using ‘learning groups’ to demonstrategroupwork in practice; noting that they have the potential to be ‘experiential’ in nature(p.80). It however will be the educators handling of the interpersonal interactions andrealities, as they present, that will form the experiences necessary for students to trulyunderstand and embrace groupwork as a dynamic, interactive and effective practiceapproach.Book Groups: an approach for practice?Students who have been exposed to a book group within a learning context,where groupwork as a method of intervention has been made explicit, shouldsubsequently be equipped with understandings that enable them to deploy the bookgroup approach in their groupwork practice.In terms of book group as a method for practice, the principles employed toidentify a group for whom a book group is appropriate are dependent upon the problemdefined by potential group members and whether or not that the problem is common interms of the need to explore, accept or resolve. Initially, however, this commonalityshould be evident from within the broad reach of a service provision. For example asocial worker working with people experiencing addictions might find a group ofservice users interested in coming together to explore common problems throughexploring literature pertaining to their common issues relating to addiction. I have12 P a g e
found ‘Recovery Stories: Journeys through Adversity, Hope and Awakening’ (Jopling,20
groupwork for practice. This paper discusses the use of book groups on an English university social work course and their application in practice. . . Keywords: book groups, groupwork, social work education, teaching, learning,
Amendments to the Louisiana Constitution of 1974 Article I Article II Article III Article IV Article V Article VI Article VII Article VIII Article IX Article X Article XI Article XII Article XIII Article XIV Article I: Declaration of Rights Election Ballot # Author Bill/Act # Amendment Sec. Votes for % For Votes Against %
Article 27 Article 32 26 37 Journeyman Glazier Wages Article 32, Section A (2) 38 Jurisdiction of Work Article 32, Section L 43 Legality Article 2 3 Mechanical Equipment Article 15, Section B 16 Out-of-Area Employers Article 4, Section B 4 Out-of-Area Work Article 4, Section A 4 Overtime Article 32, Section G 41
Jefferson Starship article 83 Jethro Tull (Ian Anderson) article 78 Steve Marriott article 63, 64 Bill Nelson article 96 Iggy Pop article 81 Ramones article 74 Sparks article 79 Stranglers article 87 Steve Winwood article 61 Roy Wood art
1 ARTICLES CONTENTS Page Article 1 Competition Area. 2 Article 2 Equipment. 4 Article 3 Judo Uniform (Judogi). 6 Article 4 Hygiene. 9 Article 5 Referees and Officials. 9 Article 6 Position and Function of the Referee. 11 Article 7 Position and Function of the Judges. 12 Article 8 Gestures. 14 Article 9 Location (Valid Areas).
article 22, call time 41 article 23, standby time 42 article 24, life insurance 42 article 25, health benefits 43 article 26, work-related injuries 51 article 27, classification 55 article 28, discharge, demotion, suspension, and discipline 58 article 29, sen
Section I. Introductory provisions Chapter 1 General Provisions (Article 1 - Article 9) Chapter 2 Voting rights (Article 10 - Article 11) Chapter 3 Electoral Districts (Article 12 - Article 17) Chapter 4 The register of voters (Article 18 - Article 25) Ch
Article 9. Conditions of Operation Article 10. Disciplinary Actions Article 11. Penalties Article 12. Revenues Article 13. Local Governments Article 14. Miscellaneous Provisions Article 15. Additional Restrictions Related to Fair Elections and Corruption of Regulators Article 16. Additional Contracts: Proposition Players
central fleet management 07/01/2022 — 06/30/2025 reformatted july 2021 table ofcontents preamble 4 article 1: recognition; 5 article 2: non-discrimination 6 article 3: maintenance of membership 7 article 4: dues deduction 8 article 5; seniority 9 article 6: promotions and transfers 11 article 7: wage rates 13 article 8; hours of work and .
