You Don't Always Have to Pick Up Your Mess Right Away: How Being Messy Can Be Really Neat!

SUMMARY

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a first year student's field placement experience at a group home for mentally ill adolescent boys. Upon discovering she has to “un-learn” past “learned” group work skills, she eagerly anticipates future opportunities to utilize “re-learned” theory acquired from major method course readings and lectures. Once in the field, she confronts the difficulties that this presents. The following is an account of the fears and frustrations as well as the joys and rewards one student encountered while attempting to apply and practice group work methodology in the field.

KEYWORDS:

• Field placement
• beginnings
• middles
• endings
• supervision and survival
• group home
• staying in the mess
• first year
• relationship between facilitators
• knots and groups