Working with Children in Groups: A Handbook for Counsellors, Educators and Community Workers PDF
Preview Working with Children in Groups: A Handbook for Counsellors, Educators and Community Workers
Working with Children in Groups A Handbook for Counsellors,Educators and Community Workers Also by Kathryn Geldard and David Geldard: Basic Personal Counselling (Fourth Edition) Counselling Adolescents: A Proactive Approach Counselling Children: A Practical Introduction Working with Children in Groups A Handbook for Counsellors, Educators and Community Workers KATHRYN GELDARD and DAVID GELDARD © Kathryn Geldard and David Geldard 2001 All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988,or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90 Tottenham Court Road,London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St.Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 978-0-333-92143-2 ISBN 978-1-4039-1459-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4039-1459-0 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 Contents List of figures and tables viii Introduction ix PART I GROUPS FOR CHILDREN 1 Why run groups? 3 Advantages of group work 3 Limitations of group work 9 2 Types of group 12 Theoretical approaches for producing change 12 Types of group 16 Open and closed groups 23 Topic-focused and system-focused groups 24 Deciding on the type of group and theoretical approach 24 PART II PLANNING A GROUP PROGRAMME 3 Identifying the needs of a target group 29 Formulating assumptions about the target group 29 Normal child development 31 The influence of developmental level of functioning 45 4 Planning to run a group 48 Deciding whether a group treatment option could meet identified needs 48 Deciding where it is practicable to run a group 49 Preparing an overall plan 53 v CONTENTS 5 Designing a group programme 62 Overall programme design 62 Individual session design 66 PART III RUNNING A GROUP PROGRAMME 6 Assessment of children for inclusion in a group programme 79 The purpose of assessment 79 The assessment process 83 7 The leader’s role 98 Leadership style 98 The stages of group development 104 The needs of individual children 111 The influence of group structure 114 Debriefing and supervision 114 8 Counselling and facilitation skills required in children’s groups 117 Counselling skills 118 Processing skills 124 Facilitation skills 127 Managing behaviour 134 9 Evaluating the outcomes of a group programme 139 Evaluation of a programme using pre- and post-measures 140 Continuous evaluation of a programme 141 Formal and informal data gathering 142 Assessment of cost effectiveness 146 Assessment of leadership style and model of practice 148 Conclusion 150 PART IV GROUP PROGRAMMES FOR PARTICULAR PURPOSES 10 Domestic violence programme 154 The weekly programme 154 vi CONTENTS 11 ADHD programme 168 The programme 169 12 Self-esteem programme 180 The programme 180 13 Social skills programme 195 The programme 196 APPENDICES 212 Appendix A Activities and games 212 Appendix B Work-sheets 230 References 246 Index 255 vii List of figures and tables Figures 5.1 Plan for the overall design of a group programme 63 5.2 Plan for designing the programme for a single group session 67 5.3 Weekly session template 72 6.1 An assessment process 84 9.1 The continuous evaluation method 142 9.2 Session evaluation form 144 9.3 Session evaluation form 145 9.4 Session evaluation form 146 Tables 4.1 Planning Guide 54 5.1 Developing topics and themes from assumptions 64 5.2 Illustration of variations within a session programme 74 6.1 Assessment instruments for use with children 92 10.1 Group programmes 153 viii Introduction As authors, we wonder whether readers might be interested in knowing something of our backgrounds and the reason why we undertook to write this book. We decided to write the book after we ran workshops to train people from the helping professions who were interested in running groups for children. Participants at our work- shops became enthusiastic about the possible beneficial outcomes of running groups for children and encouraged us to incorporate ideas generated from the workshops into a book. Our own backgrounds have been helpful to us, when working with children in groups, in enabling us to make use of conceptual ideas and practice methods from the three professional disciplines of occupa- tional therapy, counselling and psychology. Kathryn is an occupa- tional therapist who has a Masters degree in counselling. David is a counselling psychologist with a strong interest in the experiential therapies such as Gestalt therapy. Kathryn spent many years as an occupational therapist working in psychiatric settings with children and young people (initially at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in the USA, then at the Mater Children’s Hospital, Brisbane, and later at the Child and Youth Mental Health Service, in Maroochydore, Australia). While doing this work she was able to compare the relative effectiveness of working with children individually with that of working with children in groups. David, as a counselling psychologist, has had extensive experience in group work as a trainer in Gestalt therapy. He has specialised in working with children, young people and their families, and was for some years the coordinator of a family therapy unit at a crisis counselling centre, Lifeline, in Brisbane, Australia. Later, we both worked for an agency (the Talera Centre) that specialised in working with children and young people who had been exposed to violence in their families. During this time we became excited by the way in which groups for children and teenagers were powerful in helping these youngsters to change, feel better and learn more adaptive behaviours. ix
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