From the editor: origins of social group work

In this special issue of the Journal, readers are introduced to group work practice through the lens of “local stories from around the world.” This is entirely in keeping with efforts to nurture and advance the Journal and its sister organization’s (International Association for Social Work with Groups) global perspective.

Although we know social work with groups to be deeply rooted in the turn of the 20^th American century settlement movement there are significant strands in group work history that date back further and wider, as this special issue of the Journal highlights.

It is important that we consistently and diligently mine and present those strands, to incrementally round out a full understanding of the evolution of group work thinking and actions – the challenges, innovations and advances. Guest editor Lorrie Greenhouse Gardella has taken an important step to help us to do just that.

The original settlement house movement, along with recreation and progressive education movements, was a major force in addressing the health and educational needs of children and adolescents through the establishment of English classes, health clinics, and recreation programs, among others.

Given that history, in this special issue of the Journal it is notable that a number of articles focus on youth development and violence prevention with young men and women through the use of activities.

If he were alive today, I wonder what progressive education leader John Dewey might say about school shootings, the need for enhanced security, high school graduates who cannot read, open drug dealing, teenage pregnancy, and the ongoing debate over reproductive rights?

Sadly today, almost 150 years later, the health and educational needs of millions of young children and adolescents are not being adequately met in the most prosperous country on earth, not to mention in the rest of the world.

The settlement movement began officially in the United States in 1886, with the establishment of University Settlement, New York, but that is not the end of the story when it comes to discovering group work’s origins.

Given the unusual level of stress that young people, all people for that matter, have been experiencing since the onset of the COVID19 pandemic in the early days of 2020, it is forever essential that we do not lose sight of the human struggles that emanated from this unprecedented modern health disaster, the associated losses and grief, and how the consequences and challenges are differentiated throughout the world.

This is not to say that this special issue focuses on the pandemic per se, but it signals that group workers must stay awake and aware and be flexible in organizing and planning what is needed as special needs emerge, as the context of our world bends and shifts.

The special issue emphasizes the historically shifting sands in the use of activities, amid the historic push and pull to more exclusively clinically-oriented practice. In addition, it provides special attention to the plight of lesser known populations with particular needs, challenges and vulnerabilities, such as the Bakarwal pastoral nomads, who live in the Pir Panjal Range of the Great Himalayas in Jammu and Kashmir, India and the Aramaic Syrian refugees who fled to Germany during and after the migration wave of 2015.

Readers will also find a fresh look at settlement houses and camps, that examines applied concepts for working with small groups that continue to be relevant today, as well as a special feature on social justice that tracks the career of our highly esteemed colleague Professor Charles Garvin.

I expect readers to be delighted and informed by the careful attention guest editor Lorrie Greenhouse Gardella put into assembling this special collection that can help to accomplish what Lowy (1985) had once foreseen; that “the group can provide what the ego needs – hope and a sense of the future” (p. 281).

Disclosure statement

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