Group work is … powerful! This stuff changes … lives: training on group processes for facilitators of curriculum-based groups. Issue 4 (1st October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kurz, Brenda; Letendre, Joan; Nieman, Paula; Smith Cohen, Linda; Beebe, Gina
• Is Part Of: Social work with groups. Volume 43:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 318
• Page End: 333
• Publication Date: 2020-10-01
• Subjects: Groupwork -- parent groups -- mutual aid -- group processes -- training; Social group work -- Periodicals; 361.405
• DOI: 10.1080/01609513.2019.1670122
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0160-9513

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article describes a four-year group work training project conducted with facilitators of curriculum-based parenting groups who had not been trained in group work or group processes. A total 14 group facilitators and 144 group members from 34 groups were involved in the training and the mixed method evaluation. Participants described how the training modified their group facilitation, helping them understand that the groups themselves as well as the curricula were informative and transformative, and that group members as well as group facilitators had roles. Further, facilitators indicated that the training resulted in fundamental change in their self-perceptions from being simply purveyors of a parenting curriculum to empathic agents of change as well.