BSSW1014

Lesson 2:

THEMATIC MOVEMENTS OF GROUP’S GOALS

• Games and recreational activities are what many people associate with social work practice
with groups.

• Social group work practice with groups in the country has change through years because of
the different events.
Before the Sixties: Socialization Goals

 Groups were used for the development of the individual through training in social skills
and inculcating social values.
 Socialization- the process by which people selectively acquire the values and attitudes of
the groups of which they are a part.
 Considered as their main goal of group serving social agencies during their first decades
in the country.
The Sixties: Prevention, Treatment and Development Goals
• In 1960’s, an increasing number of agencies was using the group method for both
preventive and therapeutic purposes.
• Special Child Study center Inc. organized parents’ groups to help participants to understand,
accept, and deal with their children’s condition.
• Philippine Mental health Association, this writer was part of a team (psychiatrist, clinical
psychologist and psychiatric social worker)
• Conducted group therapy sessions including the use of psycho-drama with emotionally
disturbed patients in Day Care Center.
The Seventies: Emphasizing Developmental Goals

 In the following decade, the government’s pursuit of its Development Plan was reflected in
efforts in the Department of Social Welfare (which in 1976 had become, the Department of
Social Services and development) to undertake develop mental programs and services for
the bottom 30-percent of the country’s population.
 Emphasis on the developmental Social Welfare was spurred by the United Nations
declaration of the first Developmental Decade in the 60’s and second on the seventies.
To support increased productivity on the part of individual, group and communities
o Self-employment Assistance
o Leadership Training
o Responsible Parenthood
o Family Life Education Programs
 Barangay Approach -The use of the existing political structure, the barangay, as the
worker’s point of entry and the basis for problem identification and prioritization.
 Social Workers in juvenile and domestic relations courts also used groups to help provide
legal offender with group experiences aimed at their socialization and or re-socialization,
while those employed in orphanages provide their wards with group experiences for
socialization purposes.
 The declaration of Martial Law (1972-1981) had significant effects on social work education
and practice.
 The period provoked a great deal of consciousness-raising efforts which were aimed at
making many rural and urban poor citizens realize that many of their problem.
o Lack of Basic Amenities Like Water
o Low-cost housing
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o Medical Facilities
o Employment opportunities
 Efforts alone in this line again invariably engaged social worker in work with small groups,
or, what is referred to in the literature-as “Community Group Work”
The Present Scene

 Most social welfare agencies in the country offer some type of group service. E.g.,
developmental, socialization/ re-socialization and treatment or rehabilitation.
 Developmental Purpose emphasizes human and community mobilization.
 E.g. Public agencies which invest a major portion of their resources for the support of
livelihood programs.
o Leadership Training
o Small-scale Business management
o Livelihood projects
o Marketing of Products
 Socialization purpose is carried out by organizing groups that are intended primarily to
help the members to acquire the values, attitudes and norms of the society of which they
are a part.
 Treatment purpose focuses on the use of the small group to help individuals who already
have a problem or breakdown in their social functioning.
The Remedial Model

 As early as 60’s, groups for treatment or rehabilitation were already being used by social
worker in the Philippines in the family and mental health agencies, psychiatric wards of
some hospitals.
Target of the Remedial Model

The persons who can benefit from this approach in our country.
o Out-of-school youth
o Street Children
o Drug users
 Remedial model is relevant to agencies and institutions who performs social control
functions.

 Tasked to help those who are considered deviant.

o Juvenile Correctional Institutions
o Adult Correctional Institutions
o Drug Rehabilitation

o Mental Hospitals

 The model is appropriate for those who need help in the acquisition of new knowledge and
skills and development of new values and attitudes to replace their own which may be
dysfunctional and thus have become the source of their difficulties.

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Interactional View of Deviance

“All behavior amenable to change is regarded as socially induced, acquired through learning and
related processes; it is exhibited, evoked or constrained within the context of specific social
situations. The sources of behavior lie both within the individual (in term of his enduring attributes
and acquired capabilities) and within the social situations (in terms of opportunities, demands, and
inducements). Behavior, moreover, is judged, encouraged or sanctioned by others within the
person immediate social situations. These actions between persons constitute a series of
interactions which shape and sustain behavioral pattern. The judgments and responses of the other
must be regarded as crucial features of all behavioral patterns.”
-Robert Vinter-
The Reciprocal Model -William Schwartz of the Columbia University School of Social Work

 "The social work profession is to mediate the process through which the individual and his
society reach out for each other through a mutual need for self-fulfillment”.
 This presupposes a relationship between the individual and his nurturing group which is
'symbiotic', each needing the other for its own life and growth and each reaching out to the
other with all the strength it can command at a given moment.
 The social worker's field of intervention lies at the point where the two forces meet: the
individual's impetus toward health, growth and belonging; and the organized efforts of
society to integrate its parts into a productive and dynamic whole.
 In this model the group as a self-help system is the pre-eminent feature.
 A problem-solving approach which "begins with a collection of people who need each other
to work on common tasks in an agency hospitable to those tasks.
The Treatment Group

 Vinter sees treatment group as a small system whose influence can be guided in planned
ways to modify client behavior.
 “A means treatment” and a “Context for treatment”
 A vehicle through which interactions and influences are used to affect group members.
THE TREATMENT SEQUENCE
1. Intake
2. Diagnosis and Treatment Planning
• Diagnostic Statement
3. Group Composition and Formation
4. Group Development and Treatment
5. Evaluation and Termination
STRATEGY OF INTERVENTION

 DIRECT MEANS OF INFLUENCE

o These are intervention to effect change trough immediate interactions with a group.
o 4 TYPES OF THIS MEANS TO INFLUENCE
 Worker as central person- object of identification and drives.
 Worker as symbol and spokesman- agent of legitimate norms and values.
 Worker as motivator and stimulator- definer of individual goals and tasks.
 Worker as executive-controller of members roles.
 INDIRECT MEANS OF INFLUENCE
o These are intervention that modify group condition affecting one or more group
members.
o MEANS OF INFLUENCE THAT CAN BE EMPLOYED BY THE WORKER
 Group Purposes

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
Selection of Group Members (Experiences of the member and Interpersonal
relations)
 Number of Group Activities
 Size of Group
 Group operating and procedures
 Group Development
 EXTRA GROUP MEANS OF INFLUENCE
o Which include outside activities conducted on behalf of clients.
o 4 MAJOR AREAS OF EXTRA GROUP MEANS OF INFLEUNCE
 Social roles and relations of clients prior to client status.
 “Significant Others”
 Social system of which clients are members.
 Social environment of treatment group.
TRENDS IN SOCIAL WORK IN THE PHILIPPINES

 GENERALIST/ INTEGRATED METHOD OF SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

o Since 50’s, social work education and practice in the Philippines, having been
patterned after American model.
o Subscribe with 3 different method of working with people; casework, groupwork
and community organization.
o These 3 traditional methods were seen as separate and distinct methodologies, each
one with its own set of theories and skills.
o In 1967, 1st National Workshop on Social Work Education was held in response to
the realization that social work practice was not making any impact on the
Philippines society.
o this workshop challenged school to teach social work methods based on “wholistic
Approach” and develop skills based on the generic aspects of the methods used by
social worker.
INTEGRATED METHOD OF SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
o Used here in the context of professional social work methodology.
o It is being advocate in place of the separate practice of the methods of social
casework, social groupwork, and community organization.
o It supports the idea of a generalist practitioners, rather that specialist in any one of
these 3 methods.
o Generalist Social Work Practice is defined:
 “The use of range of skills as needed to intervene in a variety of client life
situations.
 The generalist practitioner’s function is to have a wide a skill repertoire as
possible in order to facilitate the interactions between people and the social
institutions and situations in which they live.
 Practice in which the client and the worker together assess the need in all of
its complexity and develop a plan for responding to that need.

MAIN CONCEPT THAT DESCRIBES GENERALIST PRACTICE

1. The concept of one (any) client system as point of entry for working with other client
systems
2. The concept of total problem solving.
3. The concept of the client’s problem or situations as the basis for the choice of the worker’s
helping approach or interventions.

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REFERENCES:

• Mendoza, T. (1999). Social Work with Groups. Quezon City, Philippines: Central Book
Supply, Inc.
• Mendoza, T. (2008). Social Welfare and Social Work. Quezon City: Central Book
Supply, Inc.
• https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/the_/THE%20CURRENT%20DILEMM
A%20IN%20SOCIAL%20GROUP%20METHODOLOGY.pdf

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