Syllabus

Master of Social Work

SSWO 571 – Social Work Practice with Groups (Spring 2021)

Credits - 3

Description

Social Work Practice with Groups teaches the conceptual base, professional values, ethics, and practice skills of social group work. Emphasizing social work with groups as integrative practice, this course encompasses the continuum from therapy groups to task-oriented groups. Course content highlights the health promoting, empowerment, and relational aspects of social group work and its potential for mutual aid, community building, and social justice. The use of groups to achieve individual and social change goals is emphasized. Group dynamics and development will be assessed with attention to agency, community, cultural, and societal contexts. This course emphasizes ethical group work practice and evidence-based group approaches. Group work with diverse populations and the use of groups with client populations experiencing the structural and personal impacts of inequity and cultural oppression is a unifying course theme.

Materials

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

School of Social Work Program Outcomes:

Graduates of the UNE SSWO will demonstrate knowledge, skills, and leadership in the following:

1. Demonstrates ethical and professional behavior.
2. Advance human rights and social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.
3. Engage in anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) in practice.
4. Engage in practice-informed research and research-informed practice.
5. Engage in policy practice.
6. Engage with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
7. Assess individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
8. Intervene with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
9. Evaluate practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Apply self-awareness and self-regulation to manage the influence of personal biases and values in working with diverse  clients and constituencies. EPAS 2c
2. Use empathy, reflection, and interpersonal skills to effectively engage diverse clients and constituencies. EPAS 6b
3. Develop mutually agreed-on intervention goals and objectives based on the critical assessment of strengths, needs, and challenges within clients and constituencies. EPAS 7c
4. Critically choose and implement interventions to achieve practice goals and enhance capacities of clients and constituencies. EPAS 8a
5. Facilitate effective transitions and endings that advance mutually agreed-on goals. EPAS 8e

Assignments

Group Therapy Website
CO2, 3, 4, 5

In this course, you will participate in a team project to develop a Group Therapy Website focusing on one of the following: Addiction Recovery, Anxiety, Depression, Grief and Loss, Obsessive/Compulsive Recovery, Post-Traumatic Stress Recovery, Relationships, or Trauma Recovery.

During the next seven weeks, each team will construct a training and information website that will inform others who may be interested in conducting therapy groups related to your assigned issue. This assignment is designed to increase your understanding and appreciation for group work practice and to become aware of the theories, techniques, and other information relevant to the topic chosen. Please use the instructions for Developing a Website in Google Sites.

The website, in its completed form, should be a navigable, comprehensive resource for anyone interested in the type of therapy group your team focused on. It should not only function as a resource for others in their own studies, but also serve as a fully usable resource and training site for classmates and other clinicians interested in starting this type of group in their own community. The heart of this assignment is developing the curriculum for an actual 6 to 10-week group on your assigned topic (Each team member will be expected to create two-weeks of group curriculum so teams of 3 will produce a 6-week curriculum, teams of 4 will have an 8-week curriculum, and teams of 5 will have 10-weeks.

Teams must submit their google-sites link and provide view access to the instructor by the end of week 4 to allow instructors to monitor progress and share suggestions and concerns prior to website publication to the whole class. Your website must be finished and published to the class by Thursday of Week 7 for peer review and feedback. Your team will meet weekly in your small group forums throughout the first 6-weeks of the term to work on this project. Your website will be graded in Week 8 by your instructor, following peer feedback and discussion in Week 7.

Your website must contain information on all of the relevant group dynamics and concepts covered in this course. You have complete creative freedom in how you develop your site and present information and training materials as long as you cover everything outlined in the assignment requirements and rubric. Be sure to include information on core practice considerations like; ethics, culture, social policy, and oppression as they relate to your area of focus, implications from a trauma-informed perspective, etc.

While this is a team project, your individual contributions may increase or decrease your own individual grade for this assignment. This assignment counts toward 36% of your overall course grade.

Note: Your instructor will enroll you in a 3-5 person team and assign your team’s area of focus. Although there may be some issues you are more interested in than others it is important for social workers to be prepared to offer groups for a variety of issues based on what your service community identifies as the most urgent needs. Each week there will be a comment in your small group discussion forum that provides guidance and direction on what your team should be focusing on that week and where you should be in the development of your website. All team interaction and communication regarding website development, assignment of tasks, feedback, etc. should happen within your small group forum. If you wish to use Google Docs or some other process to share documents and work on detailed sections of the website, that is fine, just be aware that your instructor will grade individual contributions to this project at the end of the class based on what you post and share in your small group discussion forums each week.

Website Requirements:

1. General Information Section – Provide general information and resources on your assigned issue at a level that is accessible for non-clinical people who might struggle with this issue or know someone else who does. This should include psychoeducation information and materials, links to consumer support sites, anything you feel would be helpful to someone seeking information and help with this issue.
2. Clinical Information Section – This section should provide clinical information related to your assigned issue including detailed information on symptoms, strengths-based and trauma-informed theories for root causes and emerging and best-practices related to clinical social work treatment and support with an emphasis on group treatment.
3. Personal Testimonial Section – Provide examples of personal testimonials from the web or other sources from people who have publically shared their struggle with this issue (make sure you don’t use stories that are copyrighted or otherwise protected). This can include but is not limited to YouTube videos, links to individual websites, excerpts from articles or books, etc.
4. Curriculum Section – This is the heart of this assignment. This section must include detailed curriculum for each week, 1.5 to 2-hour sessions each week (length of the group sessions is your choice and should be based on your overall design and what the literature suggests), for a therapy group on your assigned issue. Each week of the curriculum should include an overview for the week, opening activity/process, activities and/or discussion topics for the week, suggestions for wrapping up and closing the week. Be very clear which therapeutic perspective your group curriculum is based on; for example; Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, CBT, Trauma Theory, Narrative, Solution Oriented, etc. Since you are designing a clinical therapy group you should not use a twelve-step model. Include any other relevant information you feel is helpful to clinicians who wish to run a group based on your model and design. Important: Your group curriculum must be original and uniquely yours. Existing models cannot be copied and used; for example, you cannot use Marsha Linehan’s DBT Group curriculum, or Seeking Safety, or TREM, or any other published curriculum that has been developed. You are allowed to use specific exercises from the Text Appendix in your weekly curriculum as long as they are part of a broader original design for a given week. If you have any questions at all about this please talk to your instructor early in the term.

Weekly Reflective Journals
CO1 and CO2

Students will observe, analyze and describe their experiences with their respective website development team in weekly journal entries. These observations should be recorded on a weekly basis in individual, private journals, incorporating course readings and classroom content on group process and development. Each journal entry must conclude with a self-reflection paragraph that demonstrates self-observation, inquiry, and awareness of areas of student-strength as well as areas for improvement and growth. Self-reflection paragraphs should wrap-up each week with a clear goal statement of what you will do in the coming week to work on identified growth areas. These weekly journal entries can vary in length but should generally around 2-pages in length. The course learning materials should be thoughtfully incorporated and discussed as part of your weekly entry however direct quotes and paraphrased entries should be kept to a minimum. This is a reflective assignment and as such should mainly be comprised of your own observations and thoughts.

Journal entries should contain APA reference formatting whenever the literature is cited. Weekly entries will be completed each week covering Week 1 through Week 8 (8 separate journals). This assignment will count toward 32% of your overall course grade. It is expected that journal entries will be completed when due; this is particularly important because of the reflective nature and the weekly goal setting component.

Only you and the instructor will be able to view your journal. This confidentiality guarantees that you will be able to share not only what is working in your group but also what or who is not working toward the advancement of the project. This degree of honesty is expected, and at the same time, the instructor will be looking for your strategies and tactics to help resolve the difficulties in the group. Your progress, as well as frustrations, challenges and obstacles, are appropriate “material” for journaling.

Your journal entries will conform to the following format each week:

1. Response to “Journal Question of the Week”
2. Update on group progress or lack of progress made in relation to guiding prompt for the week
3. Leadership, Communication and Decision making in the group and how this is or isn’t working
4. Your Own Process – personal successes, what you feel good about with this group, your own challenges and growth opportunities
5. The Group Process – what stage does the group seems to be in, challenges emerging at this stage, strengths emerging in the group, strategies going forward
6.  Your personal growth goal and plan for the coming week
7. References as needed

Whole-Class Discussions
CO2, 3, 4, 5 

The discussion forums required in SSWO 571 spring from the content you will cover in this course from week to week. These forum posts should demonstrate the assimilation of the material covered during that particular week and from previous weeks. Each week, you must post your initial response by Saturday 11:59 PM, and respond to a minimum of three classmates before Tuesday at 11:59 PM. This schedule is adjusted in the final (short) week. See your course for specific dates. 

Grading Policy

The School of Social Work uses the following grading system for all courses with the exception of field education courses. Students are expected to maintain a “B” (3.0) average over the course of their study. Students with less than a GPA of 3.0 will be placed on academic probation. Students must have an overall GPA of 3.0 in order to receive their Master’s Degree.

Your grade in this course will be determined by the following criteria:

Grade Breakdown