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- Title
Nucleus and Boundaries in Social Group Work: Seven Propositions.
- Authors
Spellmann, Dorothea C.
- Abstract
In this article, the author focuses on central factors and limitations in social group work with considering views of various social scientists. Researcher M.W. Bechelman in 1939 referred these factors and limitations as "nucleus" and "boundaries" of the service. Seven propositions form the base for the following attempt to identify present-day nucleus and boundaries. These propositions represent the writer's fundamental assumptions about the social group work method, its relation to social work, and its use in practice. According to these propositions: group experiences are an essential element in productive living for all persons; elements of productive group experience can be identified, and hence the nature of such experience defined and the social group work method applied to the development of such experience; the group work method is consonant with social work when social work is defined as a way of work with needs ranging from serious dysfunctioning through rehabilitation to the maximizing of present active strengths and extension of latent ones; and the group work method in the social work profession cannot be identified solely in a distillation of practice in existing agencies or services and in a rank order of their assumed importance. Some other propositions read that: the focus in education of social group workers must be on a core of knowledge applicable to all practice with groups in a social work context; and that the current lack of manpower is an aspect of scarcity which should be dealt with in itself. It cannot be used as a rationale for the placement of social group workers or for the determination of the functions of employed and volunteer personnel.
- Subjects
SOCIAL group work; GROUP decision making; SOCIAL services; ROLE playing; VOLUNTEER workers in science; SOCIAL groups; SOCIAL networks
- Publication
Social Work, 1961, Vol 6, Issue 4, p90
- ISSN
0037-8046
- Publication type
Article