Hone your group work skills to make sessions even more meaningful! Social Work with Groups: Mining the Gold examines a wide array of varieties of social group work practice, from corrections through empowerment and international issues. It explores ways to deal with youth violence (following the shootings at Columbine High School), issues of social exclusion, empowerment practice, groups in correctional settings, group work practice with seniors, gender diversity, multicultural groups, teleconferencing groups, and education for social work group practice.

Every chapter author who contributed to this timely and important volume reflects the “gold” to be mined in the use of groups in social work. Linda Hutton shares her first-hand experience of working with chronically paranoid schizophrenic clients who are also chemically addicted. Marshall Rubin and Carol J. Hinote explore ways of working creatively with different populations—Rubin confronts the use of structured program designs and Hinote describes the challenge of being a woman worker with a group of mentally ill men.

Paul Abels and Sonia Leib Abels examine the use of narratives in social work with groups. Beverly Ryan and Patty Crawford discuss the creation of support groups for elderly people dealing with loss, and Jean East, Susan Manning, and Ruth J. Parsons explore ways for group work to advance the social work empowerment agenda.

Social Work with Groups also explores case studies of:

• a school-based project to prevent violence
• a European group work plan to fight social exclusion in a multicultural environment
• a prison-based group work program
• ways to use gender diversity to enrich the group experience

Social Work with Groups brings you insightful commentary from the people who are developing cutting-edge programs and expanding the boundaries of group work. No social worker who wants to function most effectively in a group setting should be without it!