SOWK 487 - Week 08 - Group Work Approaches Related to Purpose

SOWK 487 Spring 2021 Planning: Class 08

Time: Wednesday’s from 5:30-8:15
Date: 03/03/21 Content: Group Work Approaches Related to Purpose Reading Assignment: Garvin et al. (2017) Chapters 9-11 Due Dates:

• A-01: Synchronous Class Engagement Attend class
• A-02: Asynchronous Class Engagement Experiences where something similar to psychoeducation has been impactful for you due Sunday 03/07/21 at 11:55 PM via Flipgrid
• Read Garvin et al. (2017) Chapters 9-11

A Risk and protective Factor Sculpture

Taken from Guiding Good Choices session 1.

We are going to be talking about risk and protective factors later today. I wanted to start with an activity to see how they interact.

• Obtain volunteers for each protective factor
  • Adolescent, parent, grandparent, coach, minister, friend
• Have formed a circle of protection around the adolescent joining hands
• Obtain volunteers for risk factors
  • convenience store operator, other friend, brother, school board president
• Instruct people representing risk factors to try to “get to” our adolescents through the circle of protection without causing any bodily injury. After a minute or so, help participants debrief what they saw or heard happening.
• ___________ is pretty well protective here. We could form a group of parents to tell the convenience store operators they’ve had enough and will not allow the sale of alcohol to minors. They will picket the store, etc.
• Bring the person into circle too
• Feedback

Agenda

• Psychoeducational groups
• Public Health Framework
• Other prevention frameworks and models
• Designing a school-based intervention

Group Work Approaches Related to Purpose

The reading this week reviewed three different approaches for group work related to purpose. These were:

Self-Help and Support Groups: Very related to the conversation we had regarding mutual aid groups and those concepts. Psychoeducation Groups: groups which are trying to either provide education, skill acquisition, and or self-knowledge. Prevention Groups: applying prevention concepts to a wide range of problems.

Today I want to spend time talking some about out prevention groups and psycho educational groups.

Teaching and Delivering Information

Psychoeducational groups necessarily place social workers in the role of a teacher. This role, and by extension the deliver of information should not be imagined as one way relationship.

Brown 2003 suggests that there are basic principals to deliver effective psychoeducaitonal groups:

• Selecting optimum methods for delivering information based on participant factors (e.g., age, previous learning, motivation)
• Demonstrating the meaningfulness of material among group members
• Creating opportunities for group members to integrate new information with existing knowledge and skills;
• Encouraging retention of new information by doing

Abilities in Facilitators

Engaging in group work practice requires some familiarity with styles of leadership conducive to facilitating psychoeducational groups.

• Education on preparing and delivering: Education and/or training on preparing and delivering psychoeducational groups
• Knowledge of Group Process: Knowledge of group processes, including common stages of group development
• Supervision: Purposeful and targeted supervision related to group practices
• Interpersonal practice skills
• Capacity to self-reflect and challenge personal axes of privilege, power, and oppression
• Normalizing without essentializing
• Connection of group content to the anticipated stage of group development

Structured verses Response Based

We can think of two basic types of psychoeducational groups. Those that are manualized and those that are responsive.

• The current trend is towards the integration of both types (i.e. manualized curricula with the flexibility to and awareness of groups processes)

Prevention in Public Health

The public health framework is a method for creating change at various levels using the following key ideas:

[Whole Class Activity] For each key idea, relate it to PDC and coalition work.

• Defining the target: A clearly identified area of focus.
• Understanding Risk and Protection: Through research-based knowledge finding corollary or casual finding how things relate to the target. Risks are the factors that are those things which play causal role that has a perceived negatively where protective factors are those ones that are perceived as positive.
• Interrupting Risk and Building Protection: Develop interventions designed to interrupt risk processes or promoting protective processes.
• Assessing the Effectiveness of Prevention: Assess level of change.

PDC Logic Model

Show and talk about the target, risk and protective factors, interventions, and evaluation that is done related to the logic model

DBHR CPWI Framework

Discuss the similarities of Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative (CPWI)’s through DSHS Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery (DBHR) planning framework to the generalist intervention model.

Universal vs Selective

Prevention groups can chose to either do universal prevention or they can do selective prevention.

Universal is focused on things provided to everybody. Selective is where a group is specifically targeted.

-> Next Slide

Universal vs Selective

Selective practice can be related to some of the following considerations:

[Whole Class Activity] Elicit examples of each.

• Person-Environment Fit: groups using a cognitive behavioral approach to improve a person in the environment fit (i.e. group addressing beliefs about condom use and how to get a partner to use)
  • Focus on individual change or group change
  • Can be skill-building (role play)
• Human Development: Interventions should be built on research-based knowledge of human development.
  • Built on needs that are presented
  • Reviews developmental transitions Culturally Competent Practice: Cultural Humility Can also have indicated services, which are focused on needs that have been demonstrated or require a higher level of support. These indicated needs are often performed by an outside professional or persons with more specific training.

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports Pyramid

The idea of universal vs selective fits in very well with the PBIS Tiered Intervention Model.

Discuss each component and how what it looks like.

Plan A School Based Intervention - Step 1

[Small Group Activity] Students will break up into groups of two or three. They will discuss work on using the public health framework on potential needs that might be in place in a school.

• Defining the Target
• Understanding Risking and Protection
• Interrupting Risk and Building Protection
• Assessing the Effectiveness of Prevention

[Whole Class Activity] Debrief the activity

Plan A School Based Intervention - Step 2

[Small Group Activity] Students will join groups to have groups of four to six. They will determine which school-based problem to address. students will design a group intervention that fits within one of the group interventions that have previously been discussed to address the chosen problem.

Mutual Aid & Cognitive Behavioral Group Work

• Self-Help or Support
• Psychoeducation
• Prevention Group

Plan A School Based Intervention - Step 3

[Small Group Activity] Partners will rotate groups and as a pair, they will implement the group that they planned to address the need with their fellow students.

Implement It