Choosing a Groupwork Approach: An Inclusive Stance

How do you choose an appropriate approach for working with each different group you come across? Grounded in systems theory, Oded Manor's model provides a framework that bridges the gap between overly prescribed schemes that do not always meet clients' needs, and open ones that fail to provide sufficient details about practice. The book includes detailed discussion of actual transcripts of working through stages with the same group, and analysis of published accounts of working with very different groups. Constructing a framework around a universal paradox, Manor demonstrates how to identify the needs of each particular group and plan, facilitate and monitor that group effectively. In-depth understanding of each group's dynamics encourages practitioners to generate their own approach to meeting clients' needs in a variety of practice contexts. Accessible and thoroughly researched, this book will enable professionals in the fields of social care, health and mental health, probation, education, youth work, psychology and counselling to practice creative and effective groupwork

Table of Contents:
Part One: Evolving a Framework. 1. Connecting the fragments: the role of paradox. 2. Stages in a three-cornered world. Part Two: Applying the Inclusive Blueprint. 3. Forming the group and the engagement phase. 4. Authority crisis and the empowerment phase. 5. Intimacy crisis and the mutuality phase. 6. Separation crisis and the termination phase. Part Three: Wider Implications: The Powers of Paradox. References. Index.

About the Author :
Oded Manor is Principal Lecturer in Social Work at Middlesex University and editor of the interdisciplinary journal Groupwork. He has thirty years' experience of practice, supervision and research in groupwork. He has published numerous articles in the field and he is the author of Family Work in Action: A Handbook for Social Workers. Dr Manor has also lectured in various parts of the world.

Review :
The book is designed to help group workers analyze and think about complex interplay of system levels, structures, processes and content present in any group. The value of this analysis is that workers can make deliberate decisions about when and where to intervene based on analysis, as opposed to common practice, tradition or a variety of other less defensible positions. Another strength of this book is that it is clearly written from a social work perspective, a person in environment perspective is found throughout the book. Manor considers the problem of the eclectic fragmentation of groupwork and aims to present "an inclusive blueprint" which draws on systems theory and focuses equally on process structure and content in groups. Acknowledging the difficulties in developing a model which fits all, the focus is on the choices open to workers with time-limited groups which concentrate on interpersonal needs and which include increasing awareness of communication in the group and a focus on changing role relationships.