Groupwork Reflection

Group work has been a cornerstone of the social work profession and requires a variety of facilitator skills and awareness of group processes. The SSLDTM Group Program for People with Difficulties in Social Situations (Socialwork1914, 2017) provides an excellent example of a psycho-educational group co-facilitated by two female social workers, Jane and Karen. After viewing the 6th session of this 8-week program, I began to understand how the concepts of group formation/development, interpersonal dynamics, and leadership styles contribute to successful group work outcomes.

Through leading our first group session about self-care, Amanda and I gained valuable group facilitation experience that was helpful in leading our second session. Our second group facilitation had many strengths, including the fact that we moved closer to the working stage and helped members to explore guilt related to self-care, a common theme in the group. However, although the group went well overall, there are still ways that we could improve, such as using certain techniques to “go deeper” and better managing time.

Out of the many course objectives listed in the syllabus the one that I am confident in that the class succeeded is designing and implementing a group activity and co-leading that group. Throughout the semester we were given exercises conducted by the professor with duration of 45 minutes, this included occasionally a warm-up, the activity itself and a post discussion. The primary goal of the class was to take these exercises and layout into consideration when devising our own activity for our wellness group (Getting Through NYU!) based on our needs assessment results. With a partner we had to choose a problem that the class required help with, for example: time management. We use that topic to develop an activity that would assist the group members to become better time managers and list three short term goals that we think the members will be able to demonstrate by the end of the session, followed by one long term goal. Everyone developed professional, imaginative and organized activities. From what I observed the partners also worked cohesively with each other and shared their responsibilities, presenting effective co leadership skills.

The 12-step group I observed is Sunrise Semester, an alcohol-anonymous group open to women. The group meeting was held in a spacious room in a Catholic church. The group leader sat in the front, surrounded by the group members. The group had a relatively large size, with nearly 20 people ranged from the middle age to the elderly. Some of the members just started being sober while some older members have been sober for more than 20 years. Most of the group members are Caucasians and the rest was Hispanics, Indians and Philippines. The atmosphere of the group meeting was warm, friendly and engaging. The meeting started from some housekeeping announcements and the sharing of the group leader, who is not a mental health professional but has been

In this essay I am going to reflect on my experience working as part of a team and the preparation on an oral presentation I had to do in class with people from different courses, as part of the Foundations for Practice in Health and Social Care module. Reflection is educational and is used as a means of self-knowledge and to develop using a process of feeling and learning by thinking about what happened and what could have been done differently. (Rolfe, 2011, p.8-12) I will be using the Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle to do this. In this model there are 6 different stages to look at to help structure reflection, the description of the event, your feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and an action plan. There is more than one model

During this trimester, I was a member of two diverse five member groups. Superficial analysis based on composition and output (successful assignment submission) would suggest that these groups had every opportunity to succeed and evolve into effective teams (Fisher, Hunter and Macrosson 1997; Hackman 1998). However, closer inspection suggests otherwise. As Hackman (2004) recommends, teams should measure effectiveness from multiple perspectives: quality of team outcomes (client perspective), quality of team life (individual perspective), and increased team productivity over time (team perspective). Using this model, it is apparent that despite a happy client, both teams performed poorly.

1- What role did you play in team meetings or discussions (online or face-to-face)? What ideas or. work did you contribute? Consider your verbal (vocal or written tone, etc.) and nonverbal communication (body language, facial expressions, etc).

In the grief support group I co-lead with a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) and supervised by a Master of Social Work I learned how to facilitate a meeting. The LPCC taught me the person-centered approach and the social worker taught me to monitor client’s progression of goals. She allowed me to take lead, to link members together by similarities they share, and to give members homework. The LPCC believed in self-disclosure, she demonstrated this for me in a fantastic manner the social worker I was with did as well. Teaching me that it is great to self-disclose when appropriate and when it will benefit the progression of the group or for them to feel comfortable trusting the leader. In my group sessions I did not deem self-disclosure appropriate to use. How I will translate this is to be aware of my clients, to ask them what goals they hope to achieve, and for them to keep journals of progress. I will create a safe atmosphere for clients to speak, provide affirmation, and help clients set and maintain goals.

Teamwork can be complex and challenging given task and interpersonal issues, level of group motivation and expected performance standards. The concrete experience spoken about in this reflection piece is in reference to the effectiveness of myself as a group member and the group, working to write a report outlining the organisation and structure of Volkswagen. Dennison (2009) applies Kolb’s learning cycle (1981, 1984) which suggests that learning moves through a continuous cycle, between having an experience, and then reflecting on that action. This cycle has been developed from Lewin’s (1951) model for experiential learning. Reflection termed by Boud, Keogh and Walker (1985) ‘is a forum of response to the learner to experience’(p. 18). On reflection, the early set group dynamics was a defining factor in the experience, and how the team conducted themselves throughout the task. Meyerson, Wick and Kramer (1996) note that ‘such rapidly converging groups require methods for developing “swift trust”’ (p. 8), which can explain why initial group dynamics are so important. I took on multiple team roles, including group leader, which could be translated into the team not performing collectively on a high level, however, I could view this as a personal ineffectiveness of my leadership style.

To further understand Belbin Team Role Theory, I, together with four students formed a team and simulated as being authorized by the Songjiang Government Bureau to investigate into the current situation and the prospect of the higher education industry in Songjiang District. Through unremitting team efforts, we successfully demonstrated our findings and recommended several ideas via a formal presentation. Reviewing the three-months-long process of cooperation, I really found this experience of learning meaningful and fruitful. This reflective essay is a conclusion of my sympathetic introspection of the

I actively participated in the assignment throughout the whole process. After plenty of research on literature reviews, I devoted to extract from the former two parts and then produced the suggestions for future research related to the audit reporting model. I joined every discussion and came up with possible solutions to the problems with the topic. I followed the schedule to present my part punctually so that other group member could continue to revise the research. During the assignment period, I sometimes insisted in my own opinion, which is not appropriate for group work. Fortunately, I was persuaded through communication and change my incorrect views.

At initial of spring semester, Professor Nola Schmidt made groups in research method for evidence based practice (NUR 670) for paper and homework. After she made groups, I sent her email about change my partner in the group at the same day. However, she did not respond my email at that time. I was not comfortable when she said, " you will work with Jalal for homework and paper" because I knew him already, and we worked in the same hospital in my country. I told Professor, I want to work with domestic students or Indian students because they might have different ideas and knowledge about nursing, but she did not answer my email. In fact, I hoped to be alone to make paper after the Professor did not change the group. I knew my grade on the exam

In my undergraduate work, almost all of my classes that were directly related to my major required at the least one group project. In the beginning this was not something I was very fond of mostly because I had some bad experiences when it came to working with others on projects. Usually it was the problem of people not pulling their own weight, and doing their parts to help with the tasks. When it came time to have the assignment complete it was even harder to give a grade to those people. I did not want to be the guy who caused someone to throw someone under the bus. However, after I thought about it, I did want to be that guy because in the real world on a work project if there was someone who did not pull their weight in the job projects would not be successful. So, when it came time for grades, I was always honest, and usually if a person did not do their part I told it how it was.

Participations in small in-class groups which purpose was to accomplish a task assigned to us by our Professor, were the most powerful learning experiences for me. In developing common focus, as stated in Gitterman and Germain (2008), members need to establish group rules and also remember to “build on one another’s contributions, identify and focus on salient collective themes, invite expression of differences” (p. 174), as well as welcome opinions which are contradictory or different from the majority.

“Group work is a form of voluntary association of members benefiting from cooperative learning that enhances the total output of the activity than when done individually”.