Group work

Introduction: Every social service agency uses groups, and every practicing social worker is involved in a variety of groups. Social work with groups is practiced in adoption agencies, correctional settings, substance abuse treatment centers, physical rehabilitation centers, family service agencies, private psychotherapy clinics, mental hospitals, nursing homes, community centers, public schools, and many other social service settings. To effectively serve clients in human service systems today, social workers in generalist practice positions must be trained in group methods. So the social workers are following practicing of social work in various settings.

UNDERSTANDING OF GROUP: People born, grow, live in families, dies in the community etc. Without this we cannot see birth existence. Aristotle says, man is a social animal. he wants be with one another. He wants to live in society and die in the society. The person who lives in isolation may be he has to be a sanyasi or animal. without group life we cannot live. Group life is basic thing to share something, to share sorrow, happiness, security. These are all basic to any individual.

1) Group life is any collection of social being who enter into distinctive social relationship with each other. 2) Group involve mutual and reciprocal (give and take policy is a basic mantra in group life) policy or aid. ******** Definitions of Social group work: 1) Marjorie Murphy: According to him, social group work as a method, aims at enhancement of persons social functioning through purposeful group experience.

2)According to TRECKER.H.B , social group work is a process and method through which individuals and GROUPS in a social agency settings are helped by a worker to relate themselves to other people and to EXPERIENCE GROWTH and OPPORTUNITIES in accordance with their needs and capacities. In social group work, the group itself is UTILISED by the INDIVIDUAL, with the help of the worker, as primary means of PERSONALITY GROWTH, CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT. The worker is interested in helping to bring about INDIVIDUAL GROWTH and SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT for the group as a whole as a result of GUIDED GROUP INTERACTION.

3) According to GISELA KONOPKA, SGW is a helping process one of the insights gained from work with groups is that any person entering a group constellation CHANGES through his INTERACTION with others. Conversely the given group changes in turn by the entrance of a new members. *********

STAGES OF GROUPS; The steps involved in planning and implementing educational, treatment, and socialization groups are similar to the procedures followed by social workers who deal with individual clients. GROUPS 1. Intake 2. Selection of members 3. Assessment and planning 4. Group development and intervention 5. Evaluation and termination 6. Duration

Importance of Group work: 1. Go on working with individual in a group. 2. Interaction, hesitation, fear. 3. Enable the group members to develop decision making ability. 4. Enable the group members to become leaders, motivate qualities of leadership capacity, bring confidence in them. 5. Communication 6. It also helps the members to identify the solutions for their problems 7. Through the group work a certain amount of bond develops emotional attachment

8. Unity in diversity, integrity among the members develops. 9. Also expect the total personality development among the group members. 10. Team work 11. Types of programmes to be given to the members to practice group work. In the initial stage it should be recreational activities. 12. What activities can be given to them? Any human related activities (consider age, physical ability, health, interest) 1.Any games, sports, debate or discussions.

NATURE OF GROUP WORK: 1. Try to form group of one particular like homogenous or heterogeneous 2. Having similarities with age criteria. 3. Members interest to be taken into consideration. OBJECTIVES OF GROUP WORK 1 To fulfill basic needs of all human beings. 2 Another objective is to educate members to develop and achieve all round growth. 3 Help individual to cope with effectively with personal, group and community problems

4 Provide experience through planned programmes to develop potentialities. 5 Sense of responsibility, accountability among all individual can be strengthened. . 6 Group work enables development of self decision making ability, leadership quality. 7 Development of communication skill of all group members. 8 Group work inculcate value system like morals and ethics etc. 9 As a method tries to achieve the goals of the society like achieving peace, welfare of all, production and equal distribution of wealth, imbibes feeling of togetherness, unity in diversity etc. 10 Achieve social welfare.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GROUP WORK: 1. Group is an instrument for basic needs and strengthening human capacity. 2. Group motivates group members. 3. The use of programme medias, dramas, discussion, arts and crafts development activities etc. Which facilitate mastery of skill increase the social relationship with members. 4. Programme activity offers an opportunity for utilization of non-verbal communication 5. Inferiority complex comes down.

6) Time duration may be 45 minutes to 1 hour, not more than that. 7) It creates team spirit, we feeling and unity among members. ********

PURPOSE OF SOCIAL GROUP WORK

1) To teach the individual to learn to live, work together, participate in the activity of the group to motivate members to improve emotions, intellectual, and physical growth. 2) To solve the problem of adjustment by developing individual personality through group process. 3) To prepare the individual to learn to share responsibility. 4) To give an opportunity to those who have potentiality of leadership

5) To make best use of leisure time of people. 6) To learn the Division of Labour and Specialization of roles. 7) To widen the once horizon , social consciousness, creating a sense of friendship, preserving good hobbies and learning new skills etc., 8) As a remedial role we enable certain categories of people to get better adjustment in the society through group work. Ex: prisoners. 9) To prepare the people for social change and for social transformation.

TYPES, APPROACHES AND MODELS TYPES 1) A growth enhancement focusing on the personality development groups. 2) Therapeutic Groups or Curative Groups: Ex: suffering from alcoholic, treatment oriented, long duration group 3) Educational groups are basically group where try to educate the groups, conducting health camp in village, creating awareness of villagers, short term group. Ex: one day awareness camp

4) Recreational Group: no specific objectives,

except to provide wholesome entertainment, either with the children or with aged, short term group. 5) Task oriented groups: set up for completion of specific task. APPROACHES: 1. Long term and short term groups, determined by the availability, accessibility and nature of the clients. 2. Long term groups are those group where the client suffering from long term like mentally or physical long term problems.

SHORT TERM GROUP 1. Short term group ends within 2 or 1 day, conducting group work in Anganwadi, schools can be called as short term group. 2. Crisis intervention 3. Closed or open group

MODELS OF SOCIAL GROUP WORK 1. Remedial Model: Remedial model aims at providing remedy and tries to restore the adjustment of person, in the family through that in the society. Treatment oriented aims at solving the problem. 2. Developmental Model: aims at developing the educational level of group members nutritional health programme, attitude, skills, knowledge development programme to children, teenager, adult. - Growth oriented programme.

3. Preventive Model: aims at prevention of bad habits or problems Juveniles, alcohol addicts, prisoners etc., **********