Preparing the client for social groupwork: An illustrated framework

Abstract

Many more social workers set up groups nowadays, but they still face a low turn-up to them. One of the reasons for this may be inadequate preparation prior to the first group session. A framework that may help prepare the client for social groupwork was suggested in a previous publication. The framework involved a spiral process of four ‘rungs’, and the skills associated with each. That framework is slightly modified in the present paper, but the main purpose is to demonstrate the spiral process through a transcript of a roleplay episode. It is hoped that the two papers together may help social workers to prepare clients more adequately and thereby encourage them to express their reservations early or turn up to the group more comfortably.

Publisher’s note: We are now putting all back issues of Groupwork on line. Articles in this issue have been scanned to pdf files as viable original typesetting files no longer exist. Though they may not look it, these files are searchable. This issue was published nearly 30 years ago. We have stated author professional details as received at time of publication. Abstracts are word-for-word transcriptions of the original abstracts with no attempt to update terminology.