Group Visiation: Group Observation

Group Visitation

When I first started this assignment, I was a little lost. I did not know how many services that are provided on a daily could be considered types of groups in social work. According to Johnson and Johnson, a group may be defined as two or more individuals in face to face interaction, each aware of positive interdependence as they strive to achieve mutual goals, each aware of his or her membership in the group, and each aware of the others who belong to the group. (2009) I am in the field of education, so I chose to do my research in this area. I spent my time within the Bowman school district with Ms. TG, who is over the early childhood department. Ms. TG is responsible for getting together monthly with parents who have children

that are in the Bowman schools and schedule meetings with them. I felt very welcomed as I sat in on the session and I really learned a lot.
I identified the group as education. According to Zastrow, while the topics covered vary widely, all educational groups teach specialized skills and knowledge, such as classes on childrearing, stress management, parenting, English as a foreign language, and assertiveness training. The meeting took place in a classroom. Ms. TG had the chairs arranged in two semi-circle rolls. This allowed everyone to be up close to listen and be a part of the discussion. I noticed in the classroom there were chairs sat on the outskirts of the semi circles. They were set the same way, but had space between them. Ms.TG had inspirational quotes upon the walls; the room was painted the colors of the rainbow. I thought this made the classroom more bright and inviting. She had stations set up just as we would see within a classroom for children. Some of the stations even had toys in them. One station that caught my eye was the block station. I later learned it was used as a building activity to show the importance of structure. Ms. TG used the blocks to symbolize creating a strong foundation and stability in not only the parents’ lives, but the children as well. It is now a widely held view that children raised in single-parent families are more disadvantaged than children from two-parent families with
respect to their educational attainment and subsequent life chances, and
that much of this disadvantage is attributable to the limited economic resources
and parental engagement in single-parent families (Biblarz and Raftery 1999; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994; Sun and Li 2001). Ms. TG stated to them that the in order for the blocks to hold up they had to touch and be connected. She identified the parents as the large blocks and the children as the small blocks.
On this day, I observed a Monthly Parent Group Meeting.

During this meeting, there were twenty people listed on her roster. Out of the twenty members, only twelve was present. No one took notes at this meeting. I asked her do they normally take notes, and she said no, she writes down the agenda and they go off of that, but she leaves the floor open to have open discussions. On the day visited, a professional with expertise in toxic stress spoke with the group. The group responded well to the information that she was sharing with them. There were open ended questions being asked and the floor was always open to stop the speaker and ask questions. According to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Toxic stress is a term used by psychologists and developmental neurobiologists to describe the kinds of experiences, particularly in childhood that can affect brain architecture and brain chemistry. They typically are experiences that are bad for an individual during development such as severe abuse. Toxic stress has been defined also in terms of violence; other sorts of experience that a child can have that can be very powerful in a negative way on the brain. The speaker incorporated the activity Ms. TG had the group doing previously with the blocks into her presentation. By the time her presentation was done I noticed that people were asking her questions and she was now sitting amongst the group. There was one individual; he did not seem to care about what was being discussed. While

others moved closer, he moved back. He detached himself from the group and then while everyone was talking he dismissed himself. Some people did notice him leaving, but they did not call attention to it. I noticed Ms. TG make a note on her pad as he left, however she did not go after him. During the presentation, I did not think there were any hidden agendas. Zastrow states a hidden agenda as being a personal goal held by a member but unknown to other group members, which interferes with the groups’ efforts (pg.123). Everyone seemed to work well together and participated with the presenter except that one individual who stayed back, but it is unknown to me as to why he left. He was not disruptive or made it unbearable for the group to continue; therefore I cannot say that he had a hidden agenda.
When the presenter was finished, she summarized her discussion on toxic stress, stating key factors, asking questions to the group to see if they remembered, and asked how they could distress situations not only for the sake of them, but their children.

When the presenter was done, Ms.TG took control over the room. In my opinion, I felt like the leadership style of the group was charismatic, which is by far the most successful trait-driven leadership style is charismatic. Charismatic leaders have a vision, as well as a personality that motivates followers to execute that vision. As a result, this leadership type has traditionally been one of the most valued. Charismatic leadership provides fertile ground for creativity and innovation, and is often highly motivational. With charismatic leaders at the helm, the organization’s members simply want to follow. I thought this was a charismatic leadership because Ms. TG had a vision and mission statement in which she went by and wanted the group to follow. Their vision states, “A world in which every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation; their mission, “To inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their

lives.”