Origins of social group work: local stories from around the world

In his years of international teaching, social work educator Louis Lowy (1976) found “a unifying thread running through social work that gives it an identity all its own and creates a kinship among its practitioners all over the globe (p. v.).” This special issue reveals the unifying threads that run through social group work in different places and times.

The issue begins at the turn of the 20th century with the emergence of social group work in U.S. settlement houses, summer camps, and community centers. As explained by Nadel and Scher (2022): “By developing an understanding of group process, examining the impact of the physical environment, implementing collaborative models, and operationalizing democratic living, these pioneer social workers created and applied concepts for working with small groups that continue to be relevant today.”

The early settlement house workers cleared the professional path for Charles Garvin, professor emeritus of social work at the University of Michigan, who had his first social work positions in mid-century settlement houses, summer camps, and the Jewish Community Center of Chicago. Charles Garvin was the first president of IASWG, and he serves as a lifetime member of the IASWG Board of Directors and on the IASWG Practice Committee. Ortega et al. (2022) drew from oral history interviews with Garvin to trace his formative professional experiences and the development of his scholarship on group work practice. As they conclude, “Garvin’s lifelong contributions to social work with groups have been guided by his commitment to social justice.”

Social group work has not always realized the promise of social justice (Ortega & Garvin, 2019). Settlement houses, community centers, and social work agencies in the U.S. were often segregated by race (Hajo, 2021). In the U.S. and other countries, social welfare services for immigrants and refugees, religious minorities, and Indigenous peoples repressed their cultural and religious traditions and languages in efforts to promote assimilation (Sakamoto & Couto, 2017).

Kunstreich (2022) explores the paradox of democratic values in the history of social group work in Germany with a case study of the Hanseatic Youth Association (HJB). Early in the 20th century, German youth formed voluntary groups to hike and camp in the outdoors and later, during the interwar years, to engage in political action. Youth groups of the Wandervogel movement were taken over by the Hitler Youth in 1933, and democratic values such as self-determination and individual dignity and worth were lost to the authoritarian regime. Soon after the war, in 1947, social worker Elisabeth Sülau founded the Hanseatic Youth Association (HJB) in Hamburg. The HJB revived participatory group work, as Kunstreich explains, by bringing youth together in interest groups that were “based on democratic principles and situational equality for all members.”

When the HJB was dissolved in 1967, the alliance in Germany between community-based social group work, with its roots in social pedagogy and recreation, and therapeutic social group work, with its roots in clinical social work and psychiatric practice, was breaking apart. Similarly, in the U.S., many community-based group work programs that had combined recreational activities with social and emotional learning were being replaced by therapeutic programs that were funded by managed care (Alissi, 2009). Nonetheless, social workers throughout the world were discovering or rediscovering the potential of interprofessional, community-based collaborations that draw from recreation, sports, and group work to promote individual and social development and social change.

Joseph and Hall (2022) present the Building Young Men program as a model of “dynamic group mentoring” in Sydney, Australia: “Funded and facilitated by a professional sporting organization, the program incorporates the practices of group work, youth work, and mentoring to support adolescent males in exploring safe and healthy transitions into adulthood.” The use of activities, collaboration with community organizations, and partnership between professional social workers and volunteers harkens back to the early group work approaches in settlement houses and summer camps as described by Nadel and Scher (2022).

Just as a football club in Sydney, Australia is engaging adolescent boys in social group work and mentoring, so the Kabaddi group work project in West Bengal, India, is integrating sports and social group work to empower adolescent girls. The Kabaddi group work project, which is delivered by Prajaak, a non-governmental organization, integrates athletic training and weekly study circles that raise awareness and build resilience against gender-based violence, child marriage, and human trafficking. As explained by Majumdar et al. (2022): “Testimonies from group participants demonstrate the intergenerational impact of the Kabaddi project on participants, families, and communities as an effective strategy to prevent violence against women.”

Social group work has had an intergenerational impact on a group for older adults who fled to Cologne, Germany, from Syria during the global migration crisis of 2015. The group is held in an intercultural center that is sponsored by the Diakonie, the Protestant welfare organization. Based on oral history interviews with Joachim Stöver, who facilitates the group, Ellerbrock (2022) considers the mutual aid process that has arisen from reciprocal cultural learning: “In contrast to the goal of integration, which reflects the perspective of the host society, group work allows for cultural negotiation among newcomers, their families, and host populations.” The possibilities of democratic participation, self-determination, and social justice call for cultural humility on the part of social group workers, social agencies, and the communities that they serve.

Social workers may date the origins of social group work in the early 20th century, however, the Bakarwal pastoral nomads of Jammu and Kashmir, India, have practiced a traditional form of group work for many hundreds of years. As described by Rajput and Jadhav (2022), the social, economic, and political customs of the Bakarwals demonstrate the group work values of “human dignity and worth, social justice, and mutual responsibility.” Today, the Bakarwals face existential threats from climate change, armed conflicts in the Kashmir, and government social welfare policies that discourage the pastoral nomadic way of life. Rajput and Jadhav (2022) call for social workers to collaborate with Bakarwal tribal leaders: “Social functioning among the Bakarwals can be supported through professional practice with an indigenized touch when professional group workers and Bakarwal leaders come together.”

From the turn of 20th century in Chicago to the 21st century in the Great Himalayas, the unifying threads of social group work shine through the papers in this special issue: the values of social work, including democratic participation, self-determination, and social justice; the challenges to realizing these values in changing social and cultural contexts; the need for interprofessional, community-based collaborations; the principles of cultural humility, cultural negotiation, and reciprocal learning; and the belief in social work with groups as a means to individual and social fulfillment. To paraphrase Louis Lowy (1976, pp. v.-vi.):

In these times when the justification for the existence of social work [and social group work] is being questioned again, I have come to the conclusion that without it many, many people in every country would be significantly deprived of a major instrument for human betterment … But since it exists, let us apply our energies towards keeping it continuously relevant to the demands of changing societies, the needs and aspirations of people, and towards improving its capabilities of delivering quality services as a partner of social movements and social occupations which are mandated to enhance the conditions of life of all people.

Origins of Social Group Work: Local Stories from Around the World was endorsed and funded by the SPARC program of the International Association for Social Work with Groups (IASWG) (https://www.iaswg.org/sparc-program) and guided by the Origins advisory committee: Klaus-Martin Ellerbrock (from Germany), Reineth Prinsloo (from South Africa), and Stephen Monroe Tomczak (from the U.S.). We are grateful to Andrew Malekoff, editor-in-chief of Social Work with Groups, for his steadfast interest and support. It is our hope that this special issue will encourage further historical scholarship on social group work, including future articles in Social Work with Groups and presentations at the annual symposia of IASWG.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.