The Essential Groupworker: Teaching and Learning Creative Groupwork

Starting from the premise that groups are a central and essential feature of human experience, the authors develop a generic model of groupwork. They illustrate the application of this model in social care practice, focusing on teaching and learning in groupwork. This volume is drawn from a groupwork action research project with Wakefield social services, which was developed and refined over a period of ten years. The book is divided into two parts: the first explores the theory behind groupwork, arguing for the broad applicability and effectiveness of groupwork, and emphasizing the need for the groupworker to become aware of the universal occurrence of groups, and to look for the patterns of group function in society. The second part, which forms the main body of the book, describes in detail how to plan, set up and maintain a working group. It looks closely at the issues, such as power and power relations, individual and group identities, which affect the formation and success of a group. It describes how to measure outcomes and apply knowledge gained through experience, and ways of approaching group endings.