Social Work Custom Essay

Social Work 545
Social Work Practice with Families and Groups

Designing a Group

General instructions: This assignment requires you to develop a 10 session group for a population of interest to you and answer specific questions about your group. You will apply the concepts and theories

discussed in SOWK 545 to the formation and discussion of your group. Your group must be based on an evidence based practice appropriate for your population.

Examples of group topics include:
• A group for people whose spouses have deployed in the military
• A group for teens who are aging out of foster care
• A group for family members who care for persons with Alzheimer’s disease.
• A group to organize tenants to protest poor living conditions in their apartments.
• A group for people charged with Domestic Violence
• A group for people concerned about bullying in a school

Instructions for paper:

Section one: (Three pages) Using the assigned readings, in-class discussions, and independent research, provide a detailed description of the following group elements:

• What population is the group designed to serve? The more specific you can be the better.
• What is the purpose of the group?
• What is the type of group? Provide a rationale for your decision
• How will you choose group members? Provide a rationale for your decision
• Will the group be closed or open ended? Provide a rationale for your decision
• Will group membership be voluntary or involuntary? Provide a rationale for your decision

Section two: (4 pages) Design the curriculum for a 10 week group. Each session will last one hour. Specify the activities, presentations and/or discussion topics for each session. Be sure to use best practices

research to support your choices.

Section 3 (2 pages) Discuss the following questions integrating research articles when necessary.
• How did you decide what to integrate into the sessions?
• Does this group require any special skills or leadership abilities by the social worker running the group?
• Is the group suitable for clients from a variety of racial, ethnic, SES and other backgrounds?
Section 4 (2 pages) Prepare an evaluation plan for your group. How will you assess if the group was effective or ineffective?

Papers should be no more than 11 pages in length, typed, and double spaced. Papers will be evaluated on the thoroughness of the assignment, the theoretical justification of content, integration of empirical

evidenced-based content, and the quality of the written work. Late papers will be penalized.

This paper is worth 35% of your course grade.