SOCW 6121 week 6: Leadership

Week 6: Leadership

At some time during your career as a clinical social worker, you will be asked to lead a group. Whether it is a support group, task group, or therapy group, developing effective leadership skills is important. Leading a group can be challenging. The first meeting tends to set the stage for the overall experience. One of the first tasks of the group leader is to assist the members in getting to know one another and to initiate discussion. Clinical social workers commonly use many strategies, games, and techniques to create some cohesion among the members; however, not all group strategies are effective with every type of group. Identifying the appropriate strategies for a particular group is critical.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Evaluate leadership skills

Identify strategies for initiating group conversations

Analyze the benefits of group work

Learning Resources

Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Required Readings

Toseland, R. W., & Rivas, R. F. (2017). An introduction to group work practice (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Chapter 4, “Leadership” (pp. 97-134)

Chapter 5, “Leadership and Diversity”

Westwood, M. J., McLean, H., Cave, D., Borgen, W., & Slakov, P. (2010). Coming home: A group-based approach for assisting military veterans in transition. Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 35(1), 44–68.

Required Media

Laureate Education. (Producer). (2013d). Levy (Episode 6) [Video file]. In Sessions. Baltimore, MD: Producer. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 4 minutes.