The ending stage as stated in Toseland and Rivas on page 402, mentions how the worker examines each ending task and the skills and techniques the worker can use to facilitate the effective ending of the group. Some of these skills include learning from members, maintaining changed efforts, helping members deal with their feelings about ending, planning for the future, making referrals and evaluating the work of the group. In our group’s last session, Jolene had an agenda made and started off with an activity. This activity was called a web activity. The main idea was to pass around a string to each group member and say something positive about that individual and how they made an impact in the group. This activity showed group members that …show more content…
Before the group started, I never thought to myself that I have a prejudice. I would think about certain aspects, but I would not associate them to be negative. In the growth group, I would reflect on my thoughts more and I became aware of the many differences that everyone has. The main concept that I can take away from our growth group, is that I do not know what people are going through. I cannot just assume they are abusing the welfare system to get free money because, the research that I did proves otherwise. I learned that I need to have a positive thought process and to understand the reasons why there are programs set in place to help families in need. I enjoyed making more than one contract because, it made me feel like I could take smaller steps in accomplishing my goal. I think that it is important to allow time for individuals to think about their goals and change if needed. This growth group experience is related to my future social work practice because, there are going to be many families who are in need and require my help and advice. I think that going through the process of overcoming our prejudice is helpful. Overall, the growth group was a positive experience and I will take what I learned along with me to my professional
I had always heard people talk about people they knew with disabilities as “the sweetest people you will ever meet,” but that phrase meant nothing to me until I met this group. I honestly could never have imagined the impact that they would have on my life. The next time that I went back after my first session, I had participants say things like, “You came back! Hi!” or “Look, it’s Megan! Megan everybody!” As an introvert, it is sometimes difficult for me to approach new people and immediately build relationships with them. This group of people has absolutely no issues waving at strangers to making friends effortlessly. They made me feel appreciated and loved having only been with them for one session, and this feeling grows each time I
There are eight categories of verbal communication that are classified under the system of Group Development Observation System (Griffith & Dunham, 2015). The Group Development Observation System was developed to categorize verbal interactions within a group (Griffith & Dunham, 2015). The eight categories that can be used for classification are dependency statements, counterdependency statements, fight statements, flight statements, pairing statements, counterpairing statements, work statements, and unscorable statements (Griffith & Dunham, 2015). Dependency statements identify the dominant group mood (Griffith & Dunham, 2015). They also solicit direction (Griffith & Dunham, 2015). Counterdependency statements identify independence amongst
Our group proved to be productive and a bonding experience. We created together, we stressed together, we laughed together, and the group gave itself group “air hugs” when we felt we had done a good job. For the rest of my BASW education I will feel closer to these individuals than I do with the rest of the cohort. Our time together provided us the opportunity to reach greater understandings and appreciations of one another.
The environment as a whole was the most welcoming and accepting environment that I had ever been a part of. Through it all I met only friendly people and was never uncomfortable. Each person remembered my name and made an effort to get to know me, a feeling that make everyone feel warm inside. Since, I have started to wonder just how many other groups I have jumped to hasty conclusions about without seeing it for myself. Since my time with the Roy’s, my goal has been to reassess my previous assumptions and to diversify my experiences to become more informed about the things that I know little about. I have learned that you should not always believe what you are told, but rather to go out and see it for yourself. Keeping an open mind will mostly likely change your life forever.
For me, the most challenging stage was “Storming.” The uncertainty of each individual and the newness of our roles created an atmosphere of anxiety. It takes time, experiences, and trials to develop trust and respect between members of the group. Fortunately, for our group it worked out well, for the most part, and we were able to progress to stage 3, “Norming” in order to reach group cohesiveness (Kinicki,
From the very beginning, it was apparent that there was going to be a great deal of communication and learning done in this project. I could not be any more thankful for the group I was in. I believe our personalities and attitudes all meshed quite well to get this to the finish line.
Having now completed my group work task, I can look back and reflect upon the process that my group went thought it get to the presentation end point. Firstly my group had to form (Kottler, Englar-Carlson 2010 p.93). There are many theories on how groups come together and the stages they go though. Tuckman is a commonly used theories due to the simple nature of his five stage theory. Tuckman believes that in order for a group to form they must go through his five stages: forming, storming, norming and performing (Tuckman 1965 p.17). In 1977 along side Jensen Tuckman added mourning to his process.
Toseland, R & Rivas, R 2012, An Introduction to group work practice, 7th edn, Allyn & Bacon, Massachusetts.
Groups were assigned by professor and consisted of diverse students with various backgrounds. Our first task was writing group contract which involved participation of all group members and required closer contact among students. Tuckman’s Group Development Stages model can be used to show how our group worked together, as our ‘4U’ team had gone through each stage. Example of the forming stage was the first meeting when all group members tried to be polite and asked questions, such as ‘what is major?’, ‘what is your GPA?’, we tried to be kind to each other and be cautious to avoid misunderstandings in the beginning of our work. However, everything changed when we received the task to write contract and our group entered second stage of the Tuckman’s model. We experimented and tried to analyze who is doing better at brainstorming, writing, proofreading, and managing tasks. Therefore, some secondary tension occurred as all group members argued about topic, goals and norms we should establish. Our group consisted of four members which made it difficult to pass to third stage of Tuckman’s model. There was a conflict about topic; we had two ideas involving water quality problem and meal-plan issue. Both topics were interesting and challenging, there was an equal distribution of voices among these topics and group members openly disagreed, competed for a status and tried to persuade that their ideas are more important. There was not norming stage as separate, as conflicts occurred all the time, statuses of group members were also constantly changing. Group norms were continually adjusted and changing from the forming to performing stage. For instance, one of the explicit norms was that everyone should be prepared to the meeting (establi...
Culture is the practices and values shared by a group of people. Companies that have good cultures attract good people. The company culture should be one of inclusion and participation. The culture should be one that welcomes diversity and one that values the opinions of their employees.
According to Toseland and Rivas (2005), group dynamics are “the forces that result from the interactions of group members” (p. 64). These forces refer to either the negative or positive influences towards meeting members’ socioemotional needs as well as goal attainment within a group (Toseland & Rivas, 2005), like within my class work group experience. Some of dynamics that continue to emerge and develop in my group is the effective interaction patterns and strong group cohesion, which has generated positive outcomes and group achievement thus far.
... It is also essential for the group leader to not have issues with endings and saying good-bye, it can be detrimental to the clients/members and the leader. Here is where I personally think I would have issues; I have issues with endings, so I would benefit from personal therapy in this instance. It is also good to have follow-ups after therapy is over and can be beneficial to members and clients. In conclusion, I have once again learned new information pertaining to issues and ethics in therapy, but more specifically group work, which prior to reading this chapter I really didn’t know too much about.
• Anticipate the kind of influence, positive or negative, these groups will have on your initiative
Forming a counseling group may seem simple, but it’s not. A “major issue in putting a group together is screening it for potential members” (Gladding, pg. 212). The reason it can be a complicated task to complete is because members are not always volunteers. Screening members for a “group counseling session, is a three step process” (Gladding, pg. 212). We’ll discuss how these steps are an important component of having a successful group.
The group development model assembled by Bruce Tuckman originally had four stages; forming, storming, norming, and performing. Forty years ago the fifth stage, adjourning, was added to the model. The purpose of the model is to explain the dynamics of group formation. The dynamics of any group stay the same in regards to change in size, and types of group members.