Dr. Mary Bitel, with the assistance and support of Andrew Malekoff, long-standing and recently retired Editor-in-Chief of Social Work With Groups, has compiled a valuable special issue that explores collaboration between group workers and others. As Dr. Bitel explained, collaborating with others is a fundamental part of, and skill in, social work practice. She wondered how we can develop effective and contemporary collaborative professional relationships in what seems to be an increasingly fragmented and polarized world.
Collaboration should be win-win
There is no question that collaboration is often key to enabling our work, creating success and effectiveness, and furthering the development of knowledge. As a researcher, I always try and create win-win scenarios with the communities and people I work with. For instance, regarding my research program studying the effectiveness of an arts-based mindfulness group program with children and youth, the young people gain access to an enjoyable and beneficial free program; the referral agencies gain a community-based resource and free training for some of their practitioners; the university students who work with me gain training and the chance to network with key figures in the community; and I gain the ability to study a group program and contribute to building knowledge about group practice.
Currently, as our project moves into elementary school systems, we continue to build collaborations where we can with teachers, school-based mental health workers, administrators, and parents/guardians. However, this experience has been more challenging because the people who work within our education systems are frequently moved from school to school, and everyone continues to grapple with the significant problems that were created by the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges include increases in social-emotional and mental health concerns amongst young people, and significant work demands created in part by staff absences due to ongoing illnesses and burn-out.
COVID-19 changed our work
For many of us, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the nature of our social work. Prior to the pandemic, I never worked with clients or conducted training online. Now I do both and I think this change will likely be a permanent feature of my work. I have come to appreciate how online counseling and therapy can be effective for some people even granting them more control over the process. I have been able to continue working with clients who have moved. There is also a myriad of benefits to providing training online in that many more people can access this sharing of knowledge so one’s work can be disseminated much more broadly than before. Personally, I have had access to valuable lectures and webinars that ordinarily I would not have been able to attend. Finally, when it comes to meetings, I can schedule more into a day if I do not have to travel to attend every meeting in person. Thus, there have been many positive developments to making online work a part of my overall work including the ability to develop collaborations with people who do not live in my home community.
However, while some group programs can be successfully offered online, and offering online group programs might sometimes be the preferred method, I do not think our arts-based mindfulness program would be as successful or even viable with the populations of children and youth we have worked with. Many of these young people do not have access to good technology, arts supplies, or suitable environments to enable them to partake in an online group program. Not to mention, one of the key benefits of our program, and other small group programs for youth, is the opportunity to engage with peers and to learn to interact in healthy and effective ways. There are so many spontaneous interactions that occur that cannot happen in an online environment. Many young people are also tired of online learning and desire in-person interaction.
You don’t know what you don’t know
One of the things that I have been wondering about in the past couple of years has to do with the experiences of the post-secondary students I train. Prior to the pandemic, I had an energetic lab where more than a dozen students met and worked together. I actively encouraged collaborations between undergraduate and graduate students wherein students learned to conduct analyses together, helped one another with their respective projects, and even wrote papers together. But collaborations also happened spontaneously emerging from impromptu conversations because people were physically in the same space. Friendships formed, birthdays and other milestones were celebrated, and writing groups came together so that students could help each other over the finish line with their respective projects and theses. I also came to know some of these students more closely due to conversations that emerged because we worked in a shared space. Thus, my ability to support and advocate for them was improved. Looking back over my academic career, these years will count as some of the most enjoyable and meaningful ones for me. We built a community united around learning and making a difference in young people’s lives.
The pandemic led to profound changes as people had to isolate and the lab remained empty for quite a while. I have a smaller team of students now and although we can access the lab again, the experience has not been the same. We all tend to work more at home. Meetings are usually held online primarily due to the convenience of not having to travel into the university. Also, the current student cohort has experienced education from home and online. Operating in an online world was part of their daily experience even before the pandemic hit, and many have friends who they only know online. I appreciate that some of these students have online friends and communities that are important and valuable. However, while collaborations can certainly be created online – I have done this myself – I wonder about how the future is going to unfold given the current physical and social isolation of many social work students.
Discussing the importance of collaboration
In my role as an educator, I see that many students mostly work alone, and some might not see any benefit to working in a shared space or with others. I believe that it is challenging for some of these students to know what they are missing if they have never had the experiences I described above. Also, some social workers go on to work professionally in online jobs at home. Will this have consequences for their understanding, appreciation, and development of collaborative practices? Perhaps we need to teach students both the importance of collaboration and the skills that build good collaboration more overtly? We could do this when students conduct group-based projects teaching them how to engage with one another in ethical ways and in a manner that promotes productive discourse rather than hoping or thinking they will figure it out on their own.
Finally, we know how stressful and traumatic our work can be. Working in isolation can exacerbate the experiences of compassion fatigue/secondary trauma and burn-out due to a lack of support and solidarity with others. Importantly, we cannot tackle the significant challenges facing the communities we work with alone.
To this end, if you are in a position where you mentor, train, or teach emerging social workers and group workers, I encourage you to think about how you can share the importance of collaboration for both our professional and personal growth. Certainly, the ideas presented in the papers in this special issue have many insights to consider and share.