Preparing Social Work Students for Life-Transition Counseling within the Human Behavior Sequence

Abstract

Life-transition group counseling is described as a highly effective crisis intervention modality that is becoming an important part of social work practice. Students can learn this method in the first year Human Behavior and the Social Environment course through emphasis on developmental and accidental transition points in the life cycle. Students also are given practical guidelines for initiating intervention groups in different fieldwork settings, based on crisis intervention theory and on currently evolving practice models. Students are encouraged to write term papers about certain life transitions as a way of acquiring the necessary knowledge for this new social work method.