Social Group Work Theory and Practice
By Gertrude Wilson, Professor, University of California at Berkeley
A Presentation at the the 83rd Annual Forum of the National Conference Of Social Work, St. Louis, Missouri, May 20-25, 1956
In order to examine the nature of the current theories and practices of a part of the profession of social work, it is necessary for us to view this part against the profession as a whole and the social-culture setting which affects it and which it affects.
Social group work, as one of the methods of the social work profession, was introduced during the first quarter of this century. It emerged at a time when there was a renewed dichotomy within the profession between social workers who primarily regarded the causes of social problems as those within people and others who located these causes primarily within the social situations in which people with problems were living.
This difference in point of view has found expression in the organization of various types of agencies, all of which may be classified as social welfare organizations although their methods of providing services differ. Some of these methods are used in the social work profession of today. The stimulus for the organization of services, and the development of methods to provide them, arises out of the lag between basic human needs and the ability of social institutions, particularly the family, religion, government, and economic systems, to meet them. In consideration of the changes of the last hundred years, it is observed that “industrialism” has had an increasing impact upon the total social culture of our time. We recognize the severe struggle experienced by individuals and groups to adjust to the sharp changes in the nature of their environment. The effect of industrialism is universal, it demands changes in the functions to be performed by all social institutions. The rate of change demanded has proportionately increased with the rapidity with which technological advances have been applied to the production of material goods and to communication and transportation.
The impact of industrialism, and of the new insights into human behavior gained in the pre-atomic age, upon social welfare organizations and the profession of social work may be documented from history. While the time span is of insufficient length to identify significant trends in the effects upon the profession of the recent momentous discoveries relative to matter and man, it does indicate a direction for speculation.
Social forces affecting a large collection of people are, in the last analysis, recognized by their effect upon some people, as seen by other people, one at a time. People in trouble need help. Some observers will be stimulated to help themselves and/or other people meet their immediate problems. Others will try to eliminate the causes of the problems by a variety of methods. Some will be moved to work in both directions simultaneously. During the first twenty years of this century, while the agencies developing social casework services continued to devote the larger proportion of their time to working with people on an individual-by-individual basis, there was an increasing participation of other social workers in working “for and with the masses.” The personnel of the social welfare organizations, both volunteer and staff, continued to reflect sharp differences of opinion between the people who identified with agencies devoted to changing the “social order” and those who identified with agencies which were developing “the art of bringing about better social adjustments in the social relationships of individual men, women or children.” By 1915 the division was sharp, and the two approaches within the profession were evident in the literature of the first twenty-five years of this century.
Although Mary Richmond expressed the feeling that social caseworkers would welcome the results of the work of other members of the profession,1 there is no indication that participation by social caseworkers in the processes of social change, other than on the individual-by-individual basis, was envisioned. Later, Miss Richmond added this dimension to the caseworker’s function when she said: “I’ve spent the first twenty-five years of my professional life in an attempt to get social case work accepted as a valid process in Social Work. Now I shall spend the rest of my life trying to demonstrate to social case workers that there is more to social work than social case work.”
The methods employed by the social reformers were largely limited to securing legislation aimed to prevent or control crisis situations endangering the life and happiness of segments of the population. Social problems became the “causes” of individuals or of a relatively small group who fought the battles of the underprivileged. There was only occasional emphasis upon helping groups to participate in changing social situations. It was primarily the care of the weak by the strong. This basic social philosophy dramatized by the social reformers was one then held in common by most of the personnel of the social welfare services, whether the approach to the solution of social problems was individual by individual or through reform programs.
As knowledge from the social sciences, psychology, and psychoanalysis became more general among social workers, the concepts, and consequently the principles and techniques used by social workers, were affected. Social concepts, which made possible the analysis of the social processes through which change takes place, brought the importance and significance of small and large groups into prominence. New knowledge about motivations of human behavior not only provided new insights to the problems which individuals experience as individuals, but make interpretation of interaction of individuals in groups much more meaningful. The First World War had sharpened the concern of most people for the values of democracy and the necessity for all of the people to take more responsibility for safeguarding them than just voting. The Gestalt of the concept of “the people” began to change from one of the individual and society (i.e., government) to a network of interlocking groups which constitute society. These were seen to be affecting one another in many diverse ways: some toward the growth of a more socially favorable social climate; some toward an unfavorable one; some advancing the “good” for some groups at the expense of others. With knowledge of the labyrinth of groups through which social change gradually takes place came the recognition that people can be helped to participate in more rapid social change if they learn how to give direction to group activity aimed to achieve the desired result.
People critical of the social reformer’s methods of “doing for” other people, but eager to participate in processes of social change which would eliminate the causes of some of the social problems, turned to the social and psychological scientist for basic knowledge. In such knowledge, guides were sought for further development of principles and techniques for social work practice. Through concerted attention to the significance of primary groups to society, grew, among other organized efforts, the progressive education movement within the educational profession and the idea of a specialization to serve groups within the profession of social work.
In the beginning, the people who participated in formulating and analyzing concepts, developing principles, and devising techniques for carrying them out, were identified with the professions of education, social work, and/or applied social and psychological sciences.2. While professional education for group workers early found a niche in a school of social work, there was a great difference of opinion among those interested in developing methods of working with groups as to the professional identification of its practice. During the second quarter of this century, about half of the schools of social work introduced a curriculum for this specialization. It was not, however, until the establishment of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) 3. that social group work came to be fully identified as a social work specialization within the social work profession as a whole. Although there have been many differences of opinion as to the professional identification and education of workers for the practice of group work, there has been little disagreement in the literature about its basic assumptions: (1) that a sense of belonging is essential to the happiness of all human beings; (2) that certain life experiences and social situations interfere with, or deny to many individuals, the opportunity to have this sense of well-being; (3) that principles and techniques for helping people to develop a sense of belonging through participation in a group can be developed from concepts drawn from the social and biological sciences, and on the basis of our thinking about our experience in practice; (4) that these concepts, principles, and techniques can be learned by people who have the qualifications for helping others make the necessary social adjustments to participate creatively in groups; and (5) that the welfare of society is dependent on the constructive nature of the interacting processes of its many small groups.
The development of a conceptual framework from which principles and techniques of practice are identified, tested, and transmitted to other people is continuous and never ending. Concepts from political science, sociology, economics, anthropology, social psychology, and psychoanalysis are “tried for size” against live situations found in groups being served by imaginative, experimental workers seeking to improve their methods of working with groups. Principles and techniques have been and are being developed both deductively and inductively, and some are borrowed from progre