Group Work Skills

Introduction

Leading groups has always been a passion and this group process was no exception. The topic that I picked was the idea of play, this was something I was interested in exploring more and the group allowed this to happen in ways I did not see coming. This paper will explore my skills throughout the three sessions with a focus on the twenty-minute clip, please watch minutes 20 to 40. In this paper, I will examine my use of skills that worked and did not work, what future sessions on the topic could look like and what I would like to work on in the future. From there I will explore group processes, what being a client was like and how I will use this experience in future contexts.

Self-Assessment of Skills

What worked

I picked this

‘How can we bridge the gap?’ It was not the best-worded question but it worked as the group then started to discuss what play looked like for them when they were children instead of the conversation that was starting to develop around working with children. I did this because one of the goals of the sessions were to start thinking of ways that we as adults play and how that comes from how we played as children. I did want to talk about play in relation to our practice but wanted to explore that in other

54 as cited in Bruner, 2000, p. 333). I took this as my mantra for the topic and knew that in the future I would want to use it in future practice as much as possible. At the same time, I want to challenge myself in the future and find out what else might work or fall flat on my face and learn a lesson again. I know that group work is something I am passionate about and I hope to be able to use this experience to guide that and apply it to what I want to do in the child and youth care field.

Conclusion

In this paper, I discussed my skills, what I could have done better, and my understanding of group processes. These all allowed me to understand groups in a new and exciting way which will help me throughout my Child and Youth care practice. I was able to figure out the use of play in therapy and what that looks like as well as examine how play affects adults in positive ways that normally are overlooked. My interest in groups has not changed and I look forward to continuing my