Social Work with Groups: What, Why, and Wherefore?

Abstract

These excerpts are from a presentation given by the author at a meeting held on May 21, 1994, for the purpose of forming a Suffolk County chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups (AASWG). Here the author conveys her deep respect for the rich “breadth” in social work’s way of working with groups. She emphasizes the importance of activity in engaging members in the grouping process, and in the democratic tradition of social work with groups she stresses the responsibility of the group’s members to make themselves a group.

KEYWORDS:

• social work with groups
• societal mission of social work
• relationship of group work to social work
• group content
• group process
• group structure
• three models of group work practice
• mainstream model