Small Group Reflection

February 19, 2016 I participated in a ride along with a Sedgwick County Sheriff during second shift. I arrived around 1:55pm. While I waiting for the sheriffs to arrive I read about several different deputies that were killed on duty. As 2:30pm was approaching I was greeted by the Sergeant on Duty and he allowed me to attend the Squad Meeting. During the Squad Meeting the Sergeant discussed all of the most important calls that took place on the prior shift.

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

This group experience has taught me many new things, all these things will help me as a future social worker. I also learned to meet the objectives need it when we work with clients.

This week consisted of me leading groups twice, doing an intake assessment with a client and participating in the documentation. During this week I also got to interact with new clients and discuss some of their current goals, this time even assisted in my process of working through with them about what goals are the most important currently in their lives. The first group didn’t go well because I had one individual being disruptive and searing a lot, the other client in a group didn’t have a chance to talk, and we had to end group early. During that time, didn’t handle the individual well and it was a good experience for me dealing with demanding clients. One of my classes I’m currently taking discusses this week the aspect of stepping out

Our group project started out with a group member leaving the group because of lack of communication and conflict over the artist/topic but overall it turned out well, and the class seemed to enjoy our topic. At first, our group consisted of Benny, Emily, Eric, and myself and after we knew that were in the same group we immediately started brainstorming on topics that we wanted to focus on. On our first official group meeting, we discussed about other topics, and we decided on a show on Netflix called On My Block which follows four teenagers and tackles some of the issues that we discussed in class. Benny was not happy with this and did not want to watch the show, and he suggested that we should focus on a music video, but unfortunately, the

For the Fine Motor Olympics, the Cleveland group went to Valley View Elementary School to a first-grade class. As a group, I do believe that we worked well together. Amy Stinnett arranged the meeting as she used to work at the facility. Ariel McFadden created the power point to show the teacher at the school and to teach the students and faculty at Chattanooga State. Brian, Philip, and I were the presenters of the three various group levels to the children. We all collaborated together to bring the needed materials to both the children and to the college at Chattanooga State. Since the class was a large class, we had sizable groups of children. We turned in permission slips on a Monday, so they return by Friday. The principal gave the group

This class has taught me a lot about running groups successfully. While I had the chance to run one major group and one minor group, I had certain skills that I was better at in one group than the other. While in my minor group which lasted about two minutes I did a good job when it came to scanning and facilitating while in the forty-five-minute group I continued my scanning skills while my facilitating skills could use more work. In my first reflection paper, I talked about listening without giving advice, I definitely followed this well because I was able to listen to each group member without giving them my opinion with what was said. Feeding off of that, I realized I am a good reflector.

Instructor of MBA522 lectured the class in a conversional way that made the student really think about the cases presenting in class. After the study of the strategies and theories, students would be requested to discuss a case and answer certain questions. In this way, students learned how to solve problems in the real world by using the knowledge learned in class. This teaching style trained me to deeply think about cases I read after class. One of my

I completed this reflection process using Gibb’s reflective cycle. I am grateful to my lecturer and fellow class members for helping me through this experience.

work in this group with primary focus on consoling other women and helping them make the

Thirdly, I asked John Blu about the activities and discussions that go on during the meetings that they hold on Thursdays. He stated that“Every meeting is different, there’s group conversations when an issue or situation comes up from a member, there has been presentations on bullying, and there’s activities like speed friending.” John Blu continued to talk and started to discuss about how they did an activity called speed friending He then began giggling and said “It felt like speed dating and that everyone was there to find a hookup or hook ups, most trying to find bisexuals to experiment with.” I then was shocked about why that was an activity at the meeting and how that educated people. However, I was not going to let this cloud my judgement before hearing what QUEST had to say about their meetings. When I went to see QUEST, we met in their conference room, there were no pride flags like anticipated, nor many cis males or females. The day I went in to observe the group, there were many people coupled off, that discussed how they all just met and that they met one another because of QUEST. In that moment I then realized that what John Blu said was very much true. I began observing them and watching how they were all over each other, which was disturbing in way because it was PDA. I then watched one of the advisors also be all over one of the new members of the group. I started to believe maybe the members are there for the wrong reasons and people were not there to

During the course of this unit, I learned how to work in a large group. I learned how to communicate with my group members. For example, often times, we discussed our goals for the day or for the following days. I also communicated my ideas regarding our artistic vision or blocking. I also developed my problem solving skills because as a large group, we encountered numerous issues. One example is the problems we encountered while building our set. We had to consider issues such as safety or the impacts on our blocking. We had to build an innovative and effective set using the materials available to us. We tried to use the big black boxes, however, they presented a safety issue and were ineffective at hiding the boys. Thankfully, we were able to overcome this obstacle as we ended up with a creative set made up of cardboard boxes. We were able to use this set effectively in terms of blocking as well.

My co-facilitator and I prepared for group by meeting a few says before our session to discuss the most effective way to lead our session. We decided it would be best to split the time between an active leader and observer. We planned for the active leader to facilitate the group and move members forward, while the observer would watch the process and offer a hopefully unbiased commentary on group processes. The roles would be switched half way through with a brief group check-in between the switch. We mutually agreed my co-facilitator would go first due to his greater wealth of experience. Physically and emotionally experience of group facilitation was more intimate than I was prepared for. As an active facilitator, my anxiety levels were all over the place. There would be times when I felt completely calm, and other moments when I wanted to leave the room. I found it difficult to structure my sentences and it reminded me of my start at the Crisis Center. The enclosed space made it difficult to separate myself from the group as a not member because at times I felt extremely close to the group even during the tension.

The theme of the group discussion was the effects of changing thought processes, which enables people to alter the way they feel, and respond by through making behavioral changes. The Facilitator increased the patients’ awareness of this process, by engaging them in the discussion where patients reflected on situations that they responded both positively and negatively to, and identified ways in which they would be engaged in the process of changing their thinking in the future to manifest changes in their lives. An example provided included; an individual may have previously thought that being an alcoholic was rational reason for driving drunk. Through blaming being an alcoholic they continued to drive drunk without holding themselves accountable for this risky behavior. Through identifying this irrational thought, they recognize the need to change their thinking, and take responsibility for the action that followed that thought. The facilitator noted that the miracle of recovery is change, and the more time that lapses, the more clearly patients can reflect on their experiences. The facilitator divided the patients into groups based on the length of their sobriety to identify emerging themes. The groups included patients who were sober 1 through 15 days, 16 through 30 days, 31-45 days, and 76 days or more. The groups discussed five things they were thinking while they were using substances. Through this activity, patients identified and discussed the similarities

The task began by forming seven groups of three or four students based on where they were already sitting in the room. For reference, on the anticipation chart, I only referred to one student from each group by name. I gave the students the task and told them to individually read through the problem and to start working on the problem independently for five minutes before starting to work on the task in their groups. At the end of the time allotted, the groups should have some sort of solution with justification and be ready to present their results if called upon whether right or wrong.