HUMAN SERVICES PROFESSIONAL CASE STUDY

Human Services Professional Case Study

Human Services Professional Case Study

Leading counseling groups can often be intimidating for new counselors. New counselors frequently share common fears of how to effectively lead a group. This handout will identify a wide range of personal characteristics of effective group leaders. Although group leaders should be trained in the specific populations they are working with (i.e. substance abuse groups, grief and loss groups etc.) it is important to note that there are common personal characteristics of group leaders that make them more effective in a group setting no matter what the population is. Some of these characteristics are:

Presence: being willing to fully experience other's pain and joy. Believe and have confidence in the group process.

Self Awareness: be aware of your cultural perspective, motivations, limitations, needs, values, feelings, and goals. Having a better understanding of who you are helps facilitate this type of awareness in our clients.

Proper Training: don't do something you are not trained in, make sure you are competent to work with the group population you are working with.

Being aware of your own culture as well as others: being aware of how your culture influences your view the world helps you understand other culture's view of the world. Being open to learning new things about different cultures is critical to having a productive and safe group.

Openness: be open to appropriate self disclosure and let the group members get a sense of who you are as a person.

Be Prepared: have a flexible plan of how you are going to use your group sessions that incorporate activities that are related to the group you're working with.

Have a group experience as a student and/or counselor: this goes hand in hand with self awareness, having personal experiences with either group counseling or personal therapy lead to greater self awareness and give us the experience of our clients.

Sense of Humor: use of humor at appropriate times and moments during the group process helps relieve tension.

As once can see there are many personal characteristics that encompass being effective as a group leader. However, it is important to remember there are many more aspects of the group leader (i.e. knowledge of basic counseling skills and cultural awareness) that all play a part in a group leader being not only effective, but successful.

Why is there such a need for ethical spirituality in American schools? “In 1963 the Supreme Court ruled in Abington Township v. Schempp that Bible reading and prayer were banned in public school classrooms. … What was not foreseen, however, was that the censorship of prayer and sectarian theology would also result in the banishment of values. … The vacuum inevitably was filled with moral relativism…. Because of the undermining of America's moral foundation, we see the guns-and-metal-detectors world of 2000, where veteran public school teachers and administrators yearn for the days when the worst offenses involved spitballs and smoking (cigarettes) in the lavatory. The public school system will never recover unless the American people ...