Week 14 - Group Work in Organizational and Community Settings Part I

Location: CBC Campus - SWL 108
Time: Wednesdays from 5:30-8:15
Week 14: 04/15/20
Topic and Content Area: Group Work in Organizations and Community Settings I
Reading Assignment: Garvin et al. (2017) Chapters 24 & 26
Assignments Due: N/A
Other Important Information: N/A

[Small Group Activity] List of values. Have move papers and rank them. Share with people near by.

Acceptance Family Friends Health Honesty Love Money Respect Spirituality What you want

• Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships
• Ethics in community practice
• Leadership

Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships have some common characteristics that are important to be effective.

[Whole Class Activity] For each topic discuss what are some possible ways that gets implemented in groups.

• Mutual commitment of members to clearly defined operational goals (mission / vision statement, agency MOUs,letters of commitment, public displays of membership)
• Two-way communication (various forms of communication and methods to share and receive information)
• Mutual leadership & shared power (specific roles i.e. president, etc.)
• Appropriate decision-making procedures (Roberts Rules of Order)

[Whole Class Activity] For each topic discuss what are some possible ways that gets implemented in groups.

• Ability to challenge each other in constructive manner (group cohesion and connection)
• Ability to resolve conflicts effectively (Policies, Rules of Order)
• Mechanisms for mutual accountability (Transparency)
• Ability to appropriately engage the skills and expertise of group members (Member strengths evaluation, sharing leadership, personal connections)

(Israel et al. 2013) taken from the Garvin text p. 439 The following is a Conceptual Framework for Assessing Group Dynamics as an Aspect of the Effectiveness of the CBPR Partnership Process

When assessing any type of group, looking at the environmental characteristics is important. Characteristics impact all of the other areas evaluated.

• Previous collaboration
• Community response to issue
• Geographic / cultural diversity
• Social and economic determinants of health
• Challenges/barriers (e.g. institutional policies, time constraints)

CBPR groups function the best when they are more highly structured, and so looking at the structural characteristics is also important. These include:

• Membership
• Complexity
• Formalization

Another area assed is the group dynamics characteristics of effective partnerships. These include:

• Shared leadership, including task and maintenance leadership behaviors
• Two-way open communication
• Recognition of conflicts and constructive conflict resolution
• Cooperative development of goals and shared vision
• Participatory decision making process that are flexible and use consensus for important decisions
• Agreed-upon problem-solving processes
• Shared power, influence and resources
• Development of mutual trust
• Collaborative evaluation of both task/goal and process objectives
• Well-organized meetings with collaboratively developed agendas and facilitation consistent with these characteristics (management)

The actual work of the group includes both partnership programs and interventions that can be separately evaluated.

The more soft version of the measures are related to participants perceptions and impressions. These intermediate measure of partnership effectiveness include:

• Perceived effectiveness of the group in achieving its goals
• Perceived personal, organizational, and community benefits and costs of participation
• Extent of membership involvement
• Shared ownership and cohesiveness/commitment to collaborative efforts
• Individual, group and community empowerment: Future expectations of effectiveness
• Bridging social ties
• Synergy

Probably the area that is most often thought of for measuring success is the output measures of partnership effectiveness. This looks at:

• Achievement of program and policy objectives (e.g., collaborative problem solving, quality of life, health)
• Institutionalization of programs and/or partnerships

The PDC is an organization I’ve been doing stuff with for a number of years. We’ve gone through a number of structural changes recently,

[Partner Group Activity] Turn to a partner, and discuss what are things that you would want to know about and assess in thinking about making a group like the PDC more effective

[Whole Class Activity] Hot seat. Ask me any questions and assess what might be some next steps needed and what has been done already.

[Small Group Activity] In small groups, teams will work together to talk about what you would do to make an organization like the PDC more effective.

I think that in thinking about doing group work in a community setting, it’s important to continue to consider ethics. The following are four ethical dilemmas.

[Small Group Activity] Have students form four groups. Each one review one of the ethical dilemmas. Then rotate members to join other groups. Each group reviews each ethical dilemma.

One part of doing group work in the community is being able to be a member, an organizer, and a leader. We can all improve our leadership skills… and we are all leaders (whether or not we know it).

[Small Group Activity] Students will be broken up into new groups. In those groups they will a facilitator will lead discussion about leadership (i.e. what is leadership, what are peoples philosophies, important characteristics of leadership, what to do to improve leadership)