Friendship Group Reflection

Geoff Gallop’s article; “Acid test for policy advisers” was provided to groups to develop discussion on the legitimacy of Gallop’s ten ‘rules’ that he believes will enable individuals to become “not politicians but policy advisers within government”. What emerged from our group was a significant and diverse dialog involving the definition of the ‘grand ideologies’ – being capitalism and socialism- mentioned in the article and a reflective debate concerning the function of political power and influence in the creation of policy.

I attended the same school from Kindergarten all the way through my Senior year. It was a private school, and I was really blessed to be going there. I basically had the same group of friends for thirteen years. One summer when I was about twelve years old, I decided I wanted to go to a summer camp. Only a few of my friends from school went to the same camp, so I was excited to make some new friends. The summer had been going great so far, and I was having a lot of fun. Towards the end of camp, a new girl was placed in my cabin, and I approached her to try and be her friend. She proceeded to ask me where I went to school, I replied, “American Heritage.” Then she began saying hurtful things to me. For example, she called me a “brat”, she said I was spoiled, an entitled white girl, and that I never had to work for anything because “daddy’s money” bought me anything I wanted. The things she said to me really came as a surprise me and really hurt because, in my case, none of those things were true. I tried to explain to her that none of those things were true

At first, I tried to be positive about the attitude of my friend. I tried to pass it off as her being homesick or anxious about school. Eventually, I grew tired of her being rude whenever I came into contact with her, so I started to avoid her. We stopped texting each other and I started taking different routes around campus. Anything would be better than hearing another rude comment. The friendship ended negatively with her declaring we weren’t loving enough, and leaving. As if that weren’t irritating enough she blocked us on all social media and beforehand had made posts about how we had abused

Junior year was the year that I was elected at Konawaena High School's Student Body Corresponding Secretary and the junior class Vice President. With these two major responsibilities, I found it difficult to balance the duties of an officer, school assignments, and having a job. I found myself prioritizing my roles as an officer over my school work, which you can only imagine did not work out so well. Throughout the school year I realized that I almost became a zealot about student activities, and this is where things in my social life went wrong, or so I thought. Friends of mine since the very beginning starred to become nothing but familiar faces, and soon enough, nothing but memories. I then began looking at the priorities of my "friends" and the priorities that I had for myself. They did not seem to match up. I soon found myself with a new group of people on

The 12-step group I observed is Sunrise Semester, an alcohol-anonymous group open to women. The group meeting was held in a spacious room in a Catholic church. The group leader sat in the front, surrounded by the group members. The group had a relatively large size, with nearly 20 people ranged from the middle age to the elderly. Some of the members just started being sober while some older members have been sober for more than 20 years. Most of the group members are Caucasians and the rest was Hispanics, Indians and Philippines. The atmosphere of the group meeting was warm, friendly and engaging. The meeting started from some housekeeping announcements and the sharing of the group leader, who is not a mental health professional but has been

A recent difficult situation that I found myself in was in the beginning of my first semester at Beloit College. The transition from high school to college was intense and difficult for me. In order to adjust to the new environment I had to let go of my lifestyle outside of campus, therefore I had to set boundaries with my friends that currently attend high school. I wanted to feel comfortable in my new environment, learn more about the people and the campus itself. I felt as if stepping off of campus more often and only hanging out with the people that I already knew hindered me from growing. In order to not offend my friends I began to get more envolved on campus. Eventually my friends picked up the idea that I had other responsibilities

I went through all of middle school having many friends; even though everyone was going through possibly the most awkward stage of life, there wasn’t a disconnect between all the cliques as there is now, in high school. Freshman year was basically the same as middle school, although everyone in the grade started dispersing into their own cliques, I had my main group of friends, and like every naïve freshman, I thought they were going to be there for my entire high school experience. I hadn’t reached the point where I realized that I was no longer in middle school yet, and then everything was completely different. Sophomore year came and a few people in my friend group left, maybe because they got a boyfriend or because they were on a different sports team and became closer to those players, but I hadn’t lost them entirely yet. But slowly I became distant from those friends. I noticed that by the end of

What occupation did your group session address? What was the goal for group session? The occupation addressed was meal prep/setup and leisure participation. The goal was to utilize their long term memory and motivate them to recall positive, emotional memories.

My story begins at the end of my 8th grade year. Before actually entering Junior High you hear the stories of all the drama girls have. I never thought it would happen to me, but it did. I thought I had my perfect group of friends. We all had fun together ,and just enjoyed each other's presence. One of my biggest struggles back then and sometimes still to this day was gossiping. I found that my friends and I would spend all of our time talking about people who we would call our “friends”. This was a very toxic situation that I had dragged myself into. At the end of my 8th grade year, I had reached my breaking point. After many months of

My prior experience in leading a group is when I lead a group of young men that were growing up in low-income housing. Ironically, most of these young men were growing up in a household where there is no father present, and they looked to the streets for guidance. During these group sessions, we talk about the stigma that was placed upon them for coming from the area in which they were growing up in. We also talked about social issues that they are dealing with growing up as African American males. Another point that was brought up was how do they deal with the police that patrols the area. Also, we created a dialogue that entailed discussing what the short-term and long-term goals were. Many participants of this group were eager to

Often times I found myself drifting and telling them I would move away, and they flourished me with convincing statements of change and acceptance. Those convincing statements soon lost their power as I figured out evidence against them. I had changed myself for the better in order to please them: I met with a counselor once a month, I practiced defusing negative emotions and I bettered myself at interpersonal communication. Consistently neglecting my emotional issues and turning against me was the last straw. I broke off our detrimental friendship completely by ending all communication. There were no more texts or faces I could smile or frown at throughout the day, so I became lonely again. They were the only social contact I had, and breaking away from that seemed to outcast me further from my classmates. During that time with them, I woke up every morning to see a text and was sent to bed with sweet words. It did not matter that those words were usually lies; I missed having that constant connection with someone. After breaking off any connection, which included no more calls, texting, or physical contact, I felt extremely lonely. I even blamed myself and pondered returning to them, but my mind told me otherwise. I knew that I deserved better friends who looked out for me and helped me smile; being with that detrimental clique was not what I earned with my hard work bettering myself. It was a long road to being confident in my decision in breaking off our friendship, but I have never felt better. Despite being emotionally exhausted by their treatment, it was extremely difficult emotionally for me to break away. My discomfort when being with them could not compare to how lonely I started to

If I could summarize my group proposal experience in three works it would be patient, organized, and accomplished. My group proposal experience was not that bad. However, I did have to be patient and wait for other members to submit their work. I also had to be patient and see when we could meet because some of my group members did not show up for group meetings. I also felt like the majority of my group was not participating and getting work done. My group was some what organized because we had a checklist of the materials we had to submit and complete. My group was also able to accomplish our binder on time because we had to pull each other's weight. The only good thing I can say about my group is that they are nice

The chapter exhibited that it is important to build partnerships to create students’ individualized education programs due to the fact that collaboration decreases the likelihood of incorrect placement recommendations for students; additionally, collaborative partnerships increase the likelihood that the assessments completed will be nondiscriminatory and more appropriate educational plans and goals are created. Personally, the collaborative skills that I have that will benefit me in this collaborative type of teamwork include my ability to work in a team; I exhibit a high degree of cooperation with other individuals. Moreover, I display accountability for mistakes and work hard; I voluntary participation and parity in the relationship with mutual respect for others. Finally, the skill that I need to improve on, in order to work in an effective collaborated team, is my trust of others work.

For my peer reflection assignment, I chose to review a video posted by Lana Pachuca. I chose her video because I have watched most of my classmates videos over the past few weeks, however this was the first week I was able to watch one of hers. Also, her counseling session was focusing on helping a client deal with coping skills for anxiety and I was interested in seeing the outcomes of the client using the coping skills over the course of a week.

In the grief support group I co-lead with a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) and supervised by a Master of Social Work I learned how to facilitate a meeting. The LPCC taught me the person-centered approach and the social worker taught me to monitor client’s progression of goals. She allowed me to take lead, to link members together by similarities they share, and to give members homework. The LPCC believed in self-disclosure, she demonstrated this for me in a fantastic manner the social worker I was with did as well. Teaching me that it is great to self-disclose when appropriate and when it will benefit the progression of the group or for them to feel comfortable trusting the leader. In my group sessions I did not deem self-disclosure appropriate to use. How I will translate this is to be aware of my clients, to ask them what goals they hope to achieve, and for them to keep journals of progress. I will create a safe atmosphere for clients to speak, provide affirmation, and help clients set and maintain goals.