Social Work Reflective Essay

For some group work is just another way of talking about teamwork. Social work practitioners work with groups of people in many different ways and in many different contexts.
Festinger et al. (Campus, 2017/2018)(1950) on the other hand, considered group cohesion to refer to “the total field of forces which act on members and causes them to remain in a group” Social work is a profession concerned with helping individuals, families, groups and communities to enhance their individual and collective well-being. It aims to help people develop their skills and their ability to use their own resources and those of the community to resolve problems. Social work is concerned with individual and personal problems but also with broader social issues such
as poverty, unemployment and domestic violence. Human rights and social justice are the philosophical underpinnings of social work practice. The uniqueness of social work practice is in the blend of some particular values, knowledge and skills, including the use of relationship as the basis of all interventions and respect for the client’s choice and involvement. (Workers)
As part of my social work programme I am required to complete an internship, sometimes called a “practicum” course.
This places social work students with an organization that works with a community or issue. As such group work plays an important part of all courses in this programme.
Group Dynamics in Social work and Counselling is just one of them. As part of this course I was placed in a group to work and had to work on our final project together. Knowing this was a requirement I had to face the fact that I had to do this even with the bad experience of working with group in the past. Working with groups has been a challenge for me in that I had to do most of the work. Completing coursework was one of the tasking. Working in groups addressed the practical and theoretical aspects of social work which would best prepare us in our social work career and its incredibly dynamic field. (Guide,
2017)
Group dynamics deals with the attitudes and behavioral patterns of a group. Group dynamics concern how groups are formed, what is their structure and which processes are followed in their functioning.
Group work as a form of social work is directed towards giving people a constructive experience of membership in a group, so that they may develop further as individuals and be better able to contribute to the life of the community. A group refers to two or more people who share a common meaning and evaluation of themselves and come together to achieve common goals. (Chad, 2017)
Entering groups or forming them, and then working with them so that members are able be around each other, take responsibility and work together on shared tasks, involves some very sophisticated abilities on the part of practitioners.
These abilities are often not recognized for what they are for when group work is done well it can seem natural. Skilled group workers, like skilled counsellors, have to be able to draw upon an extensive repertoire of understandings, experiences and skills and be able to think on their feet. They have to respond both quickly and sensitively to what is emerging in the exchanges and relationships in the groups they are working with. (Smith, 1998-2008) My group was a very unique one, it was small in size and would be best described as a task group. Working in groups is often presented as a good way of dividing work and increasing productivity. It can also be argued that it allows for the utilization of the different skills, knowledge and experiences that people have. There was one person good at theories, the others good at interventions, arrangement and a creative and very keen on picking up
errors.
During this group experience I learnt that there were skills that I needed to have to achieve our goals. These were leadership, active listening, empathy, being non-judgmental and theoretical knowledge. As I realized that I was falling short on a few of these skills I had to experiment and sort help to gain these skills. I was not very good at listening as I would start talking before group members would finish a sentence. I however asked my group to help me to become an active listener during our group meeting. The group members were very respectful to each other and would reassure each other whenever we hit a plateau or someone was having difficulty completing their task. The interaction during the group work was a pivotal part of our development as a social work group. I learn new methods of working with a group in other to achieve our goals. I was very late with my part of the presentation and was schooled by my group members and could not let this happen for the final part of the group work. I ensured that I did my research early and submitted for evaluation.
As I close, my experiences working with this group thus far have earned me the ability to be responsible as a group member and help improve my group.