Practice III Exam 2

So they can take charge of their lives both inside and outside the group

• Step 1: workers show their belief in members' strengths
• Step 2: acknowledge the difficulties and obstacles they encounter as they attempt to reach particular goals and objectives (and their efforts to overcome obstacles)
• Step 3: help them know that they have a stake in the content and direction of the group
• Step 4: praise members for reaching out to help each other

• Develop a nonjudgmental, accepting, and safe group environment in which members can feel free to express their own views of their problems; 
• adopt a position that maximizes members' sense of control and expertise; 
• acknowledge members feelings and reactions to being in the group during the middle phase when the work gets harder and members are being asked to make changes in their lifestyles; 
• try to uncover the feelings and thoughts that underlie members' resistant behavior; 
• engage in collaborative problem solving; 
• avoid moralizing and blaming

• 1) solicited rather than imposed
• 2) done gently and with care
• 3) descriptive rather than evaluative
• 4) specific and concrete
• 5) presented in an atmosphere of trust
• 6) timed so that the member is able to hear and experience the full effect of the interaction

• Worker Observation
• Natural Observation
• Role Playing
• Simulation
• Program Acrivities

worker can assess the function of group members by observing them during meetings.  Workers rely on naturalistic observations. However, specific activities such as simulation and program activities to assess members function in a particular area can be also used.

workers learn a great deal about members by observing their behavior in the group.  Given free interaction within the group, members often display behaviors similar to behaviors exhibited outside the group. Workers also used triangulation process which is the process of formulating an assessment on the basis of observations and perceptions of more than one individual is referred to as triangulation

Role-play, socio-drama and psychodrama are as important for assessment as for intervention. They allow the worker and the other members of the group to observe a member acting out a situation.

• Simulation assesses members functioning in specific, pre-determined situations. They are developed by workers to teach particular skills. The simulation model:
• -Analyzing problematic situations and developing several realistic situations that members are likely to confront in their daily
• -Enumerating possible responses to these situations.
• -Evaluating the responses in terms of their efficacy in handling the problematic situation.
• -Developing measurement format
• -Evaluating the measures reliability and validity

Program activities can be used to assess the functioning of group members. The selection of appropriate activities depends on the worker leading. When using program activities to assess members behavior it is important to keep in mind the influence of cultural heritage on member’s performance.

• Semantic differentiation: Members are asked to rate the meaning of object or person on a series of seven point bipolar attitude scales such as good/bad and valuable/worthless. Three dimensions of attitudes that can be assessed by semantic differential are:
• 1.) evaluation
• 2.) perception of potency
• 3.) Perception of activity of objects concepts or people being rated

Sociometry: It is widely used. Sociometry is referred to the measurement of social preferences that is the strengths of member preferences or rejection of each other. Sociometric measures is obtained by asking each member preferences for interacting with other members in relation to a particular activity.

Groupthink occurs when group contagion takes over and members fail to express their own thought and feelings. Instead, they go along with the predominant sentiment of the group. Group think has been used to compare the coercive power and the malevolent authority of cults and gangs.

Risky Shift – It has been found that groups tend to make riskier decisions rather than conservative ones. Riskier decisions are made when a group’s members approve of risk taking when persuasive information is presented when the responsibility for the decision is shared among group members, or when the leader approves of a risky decision.

Steps to avoid group think and risky shift: Norms and a group climate that encourages free and open discussion of ideas tend to discourage conformity and to decrease group think. Procedures to clarify how a group will use information and arrive at a decision also tend to reduce conformity.

To arrive at a final group decision a procedure for choosing among alternatives is needed. Most groups make their final decisions using consensus, compromise, or majority rule. In certain situations, each procedure can result in quite different decisions. To avoid the suspicion that a particular decision making procedure is being chosen to influence a decision about a particular issue, a method of choosing among alternatives should be agreed on as early as possible in a task group’s deliberations. Consensus is often considered the ideal way to select among alternatives because all group members commit themselves to the decision. It reduces conflict within groups and makes them more effective.

• 1) Identifying a problem
• 2) Developing goals
• 3) Collecting data
• 4) Developing plans
• 5) Selecting the best plan
• 6) Implementing the plan

group work is an especially appropriate modality for dealing with interpersonal problems. Used effectively, the group can become a natural laboratory for examining and improving the relationships members have with one another. (p. 307)

Own role; In the own-role procedure, a member uses his or her experiences and plays the protagonist. Other roles are played by the worker or other group members, who may represent people, feeling states, thoughts, or objects. (p. 311)

In role reversal, a group member acts as the protagonist by taking on the role of another person. For example, a husband may act in the role of his spouse. (p. 312)

Also called action sociogram, variations of the sculpting and choreography technique are psychodrama and sociodrama. In this procedure, a member, as protagonist, is directed to sculpt or position himself or herself and other group members in a drama that represents a symbolic or real situation in the members life. (p. 312)

On-the-spot interviewing involves stopping though role-play action before it is finished and interviewing one or more actors. The worker asked specific, detailed questions designed to elicit particular thoughts and feelings at that point in the role-play.

The soliloquy procedure involves stopping the role-play action and asking an actor to disclose what he or she is thinking or feeling. (Unlike the on the spot interview, in which the actor is asked specific, closed ended questions, soliloqguy questions are open ended and encourage the member to engage in a monologue that discloses in-depth thoughts and feelings).(p. 313) “Side Note” definition of Soliloquy: from dictionary.com: an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself or herself or is disregard for of or oblivious to any fears present (often used as a device in drama to disclose a character's intervals thoughts)

The doubling procedure uses a group member to act as the alter ego or enter voice of the protagonist. To emphasize identification with the protagonist, the double is required to speak in the first person, for example, saying, “I feel……” or “Variations on the procedure are the “divided double” and the “multiple double.” (p.313)

• On-the-spot interview
• soliloquy
• doubling

• Own role
• role reversal
• sculpting and choreography

• • Be sure that changes are maintained. Positive change can be difficult to maintain over time.
• • Positive change is even harder to maintain over time with groups focused on individuals with addictive disorders. Maintenance is also hard to maintain with anti-social group members.

• • Applying positive changes to other important aspects of life
• • Changes in specific behaviors can look like generalized improvement – but in reality it doesn't present itself in different contexts.
• • Generalization is needed because usually clients expect treatment to help their lives in many ways, not just in a single behavior.

• • Help members work on relevant situations
• • Help them build confidence in their abilities
• • Use a variety of situations and settings
• • Use a variety of naturally occurring consequences
• • Extend treatment through follow-up sessions
• • Prevent setbacks in an unsympathetic environment
• • Help members solve problems independently by providing a framework for organizing data and solving problems that can be used in many situations.

 Osborn (1963

Increase the numbers of ideas generated by members

Members are encouraged to express all the ideas, no matter what they are. Members should not hold back on ideas that might be considered wild, repetitious, or obvious.

Combining, rearranging and improving ideas. Group members build on ideas that have already been expressed. Members can combine or modify ideas and suggest how other members’ ideas can be improved.

• 1. Freewheeling is welcomed
• 2. criticism in ruled out
• 3. quantity is wanted
• 4. hitchhiking is encouraged

True, although large groups may inhibit idea generation and reduce a member’s ability to participate in the allotted time.

• • Explain the problem, list the rules, and have a 10-15 minute warm up to help stimulate ideas
• • Write down the ideas using key words
• • Offer one idea at a time and to allow everyone to have a turn presenting ideas.
• • When a group runs out of ideas:
• 1) express interest in the ideas as they are presented,
• 2) urge members to continue to produce creative ideas, and
• 3) help the group elaborate on ideas that have already been presented.
• • The group should not try to evaluate ideas immediately after the brainstorming

False: Waiting a day or longer allows members to think of new ideas to add to the list and allows time for them to return to an analytical way of evaluating ideas.

True

• • Develop a clear statement of the problem
• • Round robbing recording of ideas generated by group members
• • Hitchhiking: generating new ideas from ideas already listed
• • Serial discussion to clarify ideas
• • Preliminary ordering of ideas by importance
• • Choosing highest priority ideas and ranking in order of priority
• • Discussion of ranked ideas

planning, managing

• • Six to nine group members.
• • Larger groups should be separated into two or more smaller groups. Because participants are required to write and because ideas are presented on a flip chart, group members should be seated around a U-shaped table. A flip chart with newsprint should be placed at the open end of the U.

The agency is responsible for deciding on the group’s purpose and the problem to be addressed. At the beginning of the group, the worker states the purpose of the meeting. Each person is given a paper with the problem and given 5 minutes to write down their list of ideas or response to the problem.

Each person in the group takes a turn stating one of the ideas. The ideas are listed on a flip chart. Members should not critique, elaborate on, or defend ideas.

Each person is encouraged to hitchhike the ideas already on the chart to simulate their thinking and add them to their own lists.

 Each item on the flip chart is discussed for a 2-3 minutes. Each member who expressed an idea is encouraged to explain briefly the evidence and logic used in arriving at it. At this point members are free to express their agreement or disagreement with the idea and to discuss its relative importance.

 Each member is asked to work independently in selecting from the list a predetermine number of the ideas with the highest priority. It should include about one-quarter to one-half the original ideas. Members write their choices on index cards and hand them to the worker. Votes are marked next to the item on the flip chart.

•  Each member is then asked to choose five highest-priority ideas from the narrowed-down list. The ideas are listed on individual cards with a scale of 1 being the highest (top choice) to 5.
• After all ranks have been tallied, the mean rank for each idea is determined by adding the numbers (ranks) next to each item (on the flip chart) and dividing by the number of group members.

The group may want to discuss the ranks when (1) there are large discrepancies among members’ rating patterns or (2) items that are obviously rated too high or low. A second vote may be needed if it seems that a member may be trying to manipulate the vote.