Group Work for All

As the leading journal in professional counseling addressing group work, it is imperative that The Journal for Specialists in Group Work (JSGW) cover a wide range of issues and address the various populations who present themselves in group work settings. As an organization, the Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW) has led in its focus on diversity, multiculturalism, and international issues. JSGW, its professional journal, has followed this charge, publishing numerous special issues, as well as individual articles, covering the breadth and depth of multicultural and social justice issues. Further, there have been increased calls for wider coverage of these issues, as well as notes for which the journal appears to still lack (Goodrich, 2018). This could not be more true than in the area of disability, which has received sparse coverage in JSGW.

Today, an understanding of disability is critical because the population of people with disabilities is one of the fastest growing minority groups, increasing from 11.9% in 2010 to 12.8% in 2016 in the United States (Kraus, Lauer, Coleman, & Houtenville, 2018). Historically segregated, people with disabilities are increasingly able to participate in society because of civil rights protections that emerged from the 1970’s disability rights movement (Hartley, 2018). Perhaps one of the most important moments was April 5, 1977, when a national group of disability rights advocates organized simultaneous protests in nine cities to demand the enforcement of civil rights protections (Longmore, 2003; Shapiro, 1994). From these protests emerged a larger cultural movement focused on equal employment, greater political participation, and better community services (Campbell & Oliver, 1996; Longmore, 2003). While people with disabilities are more integrated than ever before in our society, the disability is an experience typically misunderstood by many, including professional counselors who often have limited experience and training around disability.

While almost everyone will experience changes in ability and functioning with age, and temporary and permanent impairments are a common part of the human experience, misconceptions about disability are often a result of ableism – the notion that disability is much more than a psychological, physiological or anatomical difference, but rather, a social construction used to define some groups of people as normal contrasted against the abnormal. A construct similar to racism and sexism, ableism is the perceived inferiority of people with disabilities and preference for able-bodiedness. Historically and currently, ableism has intersected with other significant social justice issues because it has been used to justify inequality for people with disabilities as well as other groups of people. Indeed, scholars have argued that the ways in which disability is discussed provides a lens to see how disability is understood within our larger society.

Scholars, for instance, have noted how disability has been used to justify inequality for not only people with disabilities, but also other groups of people, including women, African Americans, and immigrants (Block, Balcazar, & Keys, 2001). In the mid-nineteenth century, a common justification of slavery was that African Americans lacked sufficient intelligence to participate on an equal basis in society (Baynton, 2013). Furthermore, it was argued that women were inferior physically, intellectually, and psychologically and thus not considered worthy of citizenship or equal employment until the Women’s suffrage movement (Baynton, 2013; Block et al., 2001). Today, similar traces of eugenics can be found in anti-immigration debates describing immigrants as “feeble-minded and prone to mental illness” (Baynton, 2013, p. 20). In each case, disability has been the rationale to remove people’s rights. It perhaps not surprising then that disability, as a social justice issue, has remained largely invisible to most in our society.

In the past, disability was only part of the accreditation standards required of rehabilitation counselors. With the 2017 merger between the two major accrediting bodies, the Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE) and the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), disability is now becoming a foundational training area for all counselors (Tarvydas & Hartley, 2018). All counselors, regardless of specialty area, need to improve their understanding of the diverse needs and experiences of people with disabilities (Stuntzner & Hartley, 2014).

Having served people with disabilities since the early 1900s, rehabilitation counselors are well equipped to share their expertise around disability and counseling, including in the area of group work. A long-standing division of the American Counseling Association (ACA), the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association (ARCA), has been at the forefront of enhancing the development of people with disabilities throughout the lifespan. An official specialization of the counseling profession, the mission of ARCA is to promote not only the specialty practice of rehabilitation counseling, but also the competence of all counselors, who will likely provide services to people with disabilities at some point.

There are great opportunities for rich collaboration between ASGW and ARCA, as group counselors may see with some frequency persons with disabilities in their groups, or perhaps even facilitate groups specifically focused for persons with disabilities. An intentional focus and expertise in disability, as well as group work, would be important ensure that group facilitation is completed in an ethically and culturally-appropriately manner. Collaboration with ARCA could provide ASGW members the awareness, knowledge, and skills required to work competently with persons with disabilities in group.

Recently, ARCA endorsed the Disability-Related Counseling Competencies (DRCC) for all counselors. Intended to address the unique, but varied needs of people with disabilities, the DRCC were approved by ACA Governing Council on March 27, 2019. Similar to other ACA-approved competencies, such as Social Justice and Multicultural Counseling Competencies (MJCC), the DRCC are broad in scope, addressing the unique intersection of disability, advocacy, and professional counseling services. Two specific standards are relevant to the provision of group work and persons with disabilities (PWD; Chapin et al., 2018, pp. 5–6):

• C.4. Consider various factors (e.g., time since diagnosis and cognitive capacity) when screening PWDs for inclusion in group counseling.

• C.8. Ask about and provide accommodations, as necessary, for the effective delivery of individual and group counseling services to PWDs.

The underlying message of the DRCC standards is group counseling can be inclusive of individuals with disability. All counselors have a professional responsibility to consider the disability experience when designing group work. The DRCC is one initiative, and we are likely to see a greater emphasis on disability within the CACREP standards for the training of all counselors moving forward. While ARCA is positioned to promote the expertise and wealth of knowledge of rehabilitation counseling with respect to counseling individuals with disabilities, there is also a need for scholarship from other ACA divisions that incorporates disability and an understanding of the disability experience. A great example of such as collaboration is the book by Bauman and Shaw (2016) titled Group work with persons with disabilities, written by scholars with a long history of contributions to the ACA divisions representing group work and rehabilitation counseling, respectively.

Moving forward, The Journal for Specialists in Group Work (JSGW) can play a significant role in the evolution of the counseling profession by embracing and promoting ethical and effective group work for people with disabilities. Consistent with previous editorials that have noted the lack of articles in JSGW focused around persons with disabilities (Goodrich, 2018), we believe it is helpful to suggest some specific areas for scholarship to address: (a) when a client has a disability, (b) specific groups for persons with disabilities, and (c) supervision of group work that attends to disability.

There is limited scholarship on inclusion within a group work context. Since the number of persons with disabilities is growing each year, it would be important from both a multicultural and social justice perspective to consider the specific awareness, knowledge, and skills group workers may need to facilitate a group that is heterogeneous in relation to disability. Clients may be born with a disability, or acquire a disability either due to a traumatic event or as part of one’s aging and development. Disabilities that clients have could be visible or invisible to others. Group workers should have a foundation of knowledge about disabilities to more effectively work with clients when they present to group with a disability. Increasing scholarship about appropriate screening processes for groups, as well as how accommodations have been useful (or posed other challenges) in groups would be useful to increase access and set greater standards for future group work to attend to the needs of individual clients with disabilities in group.

Further, knowledge of disability culture, as well as the differences across distinct forms of disabilities would be important for group leadership. For example, for some in deaf culture, deafness is not viewed as a disability, but those with hearing are actually considered to have a disability; others who are hard of hearing or deaf may take a different view. Just like clients with any other identity, knowing how a client identifies and wishes to be addressed would be important to form a clinical relationship, as well as to inform other group members. In this way, group work around disability is similar to other forms of multicultural counseling, and supports improved effectiveness of group work for all. Additionally, it could set the stage for different ways groups might be framed by group leaders. Increasing scholarship about integration of different forms of disability culture into group would be useful to understand the barriers and successes to this form of group leadership.

Further, all clients may have needs or concerns that can be best addressed by a group; as such, further scholarship is also needed to understand the awareness, knowledge, and skills required for a homogeneous group in relation to disability. Often, we think about a specific client that joins a group, but groups could be formatted specifically for clients from differing identities. As we have seen other groups formatted for LGBTQI persons (e.g., Goodrich & Luke, 2015), among others, furthering increasing this line of scholarship would allow for new pathways to serve different clients, including respect for disability as a valued experience and social identity.

Finally, any group that is offered must be supervised; this allows for intentional practice, ensures personal issues/biases can remain separate from the group, and increases the foundation of knowledge and skills that can be shared with the group. Just as supervision of group work scholarship has increased its focus on multicultural communities (e.g., Atieno Okech & Rubel, 2007; Goodrich & Luke, 2011; Rubel & Atieno Okech, 2006), ensuring appropriate focus around the specific disability-related issues that might come up in supervision and practice is also needed. As such, attending to scholarship for this specific community may be important to ensure that group workers can intentionally and effectively attend to the myriad of intrapersonal, interpersonal, group-as-a-whole, and supra-group issues that can influence effective group practice with this population.

As noted above, it is exciting the number of opportunities for new scholarship that can attend to disability issues in group work. Literature currently is so scarce that any new literature could work to add much to our knowledge base in our field. However, we must continue to remember our stated multicultural and social justice commitment to serve all clients, and this includes those whom we have not attended to before. We would not be serving our professional commitments if we did not attend to this community, in our scholarship, and in our practice, and as such it is our professional responsibility to be more attentive to this and other communities whom have not received our attention as much in the past.