Stories Celebrating Group Work: It’s Not Always Easy to Sit on Your Mouth celebrates the 25th anniversary of the esteemed journal Social Work with Groups with a collection of 21 narratives from group work practitioners and educators. These highly personal stories from a range of social workers—young and old, “famous” and not so famous—reflect each author's development and experience, serving as both instruction and inspiration for practitioners and educators. This unique collection—by turns humorous, moving, profound, and down-to-earth—gets to the heart of what it means to be a member of the social work community. Each chapter of Stories Celebrating Group Work draws on its contributor’s area of expertise and interest in a specific topic, chronicling the development of the author's understanding, appreciation, and skill. Authors address the everyday concerns of social work professionals, such as maximizing mutual aid, promoting positive norms, maintaining authority in group work, managing conflict, dealing with taboo subjects, building a group work culture in a human services organization, working with a co-leader, tapping the strengths of group members, and addressing social change. The individual stories of working with men, women, and children suffering through abuse, homelessness, addiction, and teenage pregnancy, in places as diverse as East Harlem, Maine, Canada, Nebraska, Long Island, Haiti, Uruguay, help form a collegial spirit as group workers gain insight from the theory and practice of those who went before. The personal stories you’ll find in Stories Celebrating Group Work include: “How I Became a Social Worker” “The Power of Group Work with Kids” “How the Relational Model of Group Work Developed” “My Love Affair with Stages of Group Development” “But I Want to Do a Real Group” “Racial Difference and Human Commonality: The Worker-Client Relationship” and many more! Stories Celebrating Group Work: It’s Not Always Easy to Sit on Your Mouth is a one-of-a-kind collection of stories, at once entertaining and educational. It's an essential read for beginning and seasoned human services practitioners, and educators involved with, or interested in, working with groups.

Group Work Stories Celebrating Diversity is a most timely book about group work practice and education that highlights the theme of diversity, which encompasses acceptance and respect for various dimensions of difference. Dimensions of diversity include race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical or intellectual abilities, linguistic difference, religious beliefs, international or regional origin, lifestyle, political beliefs, or other ideologies, as well as the varying and complex intersection of these various dimensions. The thirty-one meaningful stories in this book explore these differences, leading to understanding and to moving beyond simple tolerance to mutual empathy, genuine and open encounter, and the celebration of the rich dimensions of diversity. Readers will enjoy this wonderfully intimate and intriguing collection, and will be moved to share them with others to help to spread the word about the importance of embracing, understanding and celebrating diversity. This book, with an international cast of authors – practitioners, educators and students – is a welcome antidote to the divisiveness and suspicion that swirl around difference and have become a sad hallmark of current times. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Social Work with Groups journal.

When should someone not be admitted to a group? How can a reluctant child be persuaded to participate in a group? What is the best way to deal with issues of low self-esteem? Part of the enduring appeal of this classic work is its vivid depiction of actual group work and the challenges that arise. Opening with an instructive survey of the roots and development of group social work—from the first YMCA to the establishment of the NASW—Northen and Kurland contribute to the integration of theory and research that forms the basis of group social work practice. Using an ecosystem approach, they set forth a generic framework for practice with diverse groups, establishing a common core of values, knowledge, purposes, and interventions that can be applied to different populations and situations. With clear step-by-step guidance, this book covers the major issues as well as the ethical challenges that working with groups entails. This fully revised and updated edition includes seven new chapters that reflect the most recent developments in group practice.

Launching Palgrave's new interdisciplinary Professional Keywords series, this reader-friendly reference guide distils the vast field of groupwork study and practice into digestible, yet authoritative, chunks. With over 60 alphabetized entries, it is the perfect introduction to groupwork for health and social care practice.

This comprehensive handbook presents major theories of social work practice with groups and explores contemporary issues in designing and evaluating interventions. Students and practitioners gain an in-depth view of the many ways that groups are used to help people address personal problems, cope with disabilities, strengthen families and communities, resolve conflict, achieve social change, and more. Offering authoritative coverage of theoretical, practical, and methodological concerns--coupled with a clear focus on empowerment and diversity--this is an outstanding text for group work and direct practice courses.

Get a wealth of information about the theory and practice of social work with older adults, their families, and their caregivers! Although there is a considerable amount of writing on both group work and social work with the elderly, there is surprisingly little about applying this practice method to this specific age group. Group Work and Aging: Issues in Practice, Research, and Education fills this gap by presenting penetrating articles about a mutual aid approach to working with diverse groups of older adults with varied needs. Respected experts and gifted researchers provide case studies, practice examples, and explanation of theory to illustrate this practice method with aging adults, their families, and their caregivers. Group Work and Aging: Issues in Practice, Research, and Education discusses in-depth information on group work with gay and lesbian elders, caregivers, elders with Alzheimer’s disease, service providers, special populations such as Vietnamese and Latino/a elders, and provides information on the use of expressive therapies like art, drama, and dance. Each well-referenced chapter presents high quality, up-to-date social group work practice strategies to prepare practitioners for the needs of the growing population of elderly in the near future. Group Work and Aging: Issues in Practice, Research, and Education discusses: the adaptation of group work practice approaches when working with older group members the use of a Record of Service as an analytical tool in group work with aging lesbians a chronicle of a student’s field placement at a drop-in center for homeless senior citizens the sociocultural reality of the Asian immigrant elderly residential substance abuse treatment for older adults mutual aid groups for older persons with mental illness the relationship between caregiver support groups and the marker framework of family caregiving telephone caregiver support groups group work interventions with elderly parents of adults with severe mental illness a program for the development and implementation of an intergenerational singing group support groups as an effective therapy at end-of-life the use of a mutual aid group with home attendants and much more! Group Work and Aging: Issues in Practice, Research, and Education reveals the latest examples of good group work practice with aging adults and their support systems, perfect for practitioners, educators, and anyone interested in and/or work with older adults.

Examine group work's roots and fundamental beliefs to get a glimpse of the future For more than 80 years, social group work has survived difficult times—a testament to the persistence of its practitioners as well as the strength of its methods. Growth and Development Through Group Work chronicles the evolution of this groundbreaking practice through a collection of peer-reviewed papers presented at the 23rd Annual International Symposium on Social Work with Groups. The book examines practice, policy, and education issues in specific settings and populations from both theoretical and historical perspectives. Presented in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, the papers that comprise Growth and Development Through Group Work reflect a heightened awareness of the importance of social action group work—now, and in the future. The book represents the best of social work’s tradition of social reform and concern for oppressed people, never straying far from the concept of the group, with its multiple helping relationships, as the primary source of change. A comprehensive overview of the field in international, intercultural, and cross-gender contexts, Growth and Development Through Group Work is equally effective for coursework or independent reading. Topics addressed in Growth and Development Through Group Work include: contributions of the late Ruby B. Pernell to the development of social group work research in support of group work education and practice group work in Germany-its development from American roots and its current advances social justice as a major objective of group work practice teaching group work mutual aid in support groups for particularly sensitive health problems psychoeducational group work contributions from Hull House as guides for the future of social group work Growth and Development Through Group Work is an invaluable resource for clinicians, neighborhood and community activists, educators and students, researchers, therapists, administrators, and anyone working in policy and/or program development.