Table Of ContentWorking with Children in Groups
A Handbook for Counsellors,Educators and Community Workers
Also by Kathryn Geldard and David Geldard:
Basic Personal Counselling (Fourth Edition)
Counselling Adolescents: A Proactive Approach
Counselling Children: A Practical Introduction
Working with
Children in
Groups
A Handbook for
Counsellors, Educators
and Community
Workers
KATHRYN GELDARD
and
DAVID GELDARD
© Kathryn Geldard and David Geldard 2001
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this publication may be
made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,Designs and
Patents Act 1988,or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued
by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90 Tottenham Court Road,London W1P 0LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable
to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in
accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2001 by
PALGRAVE
Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St.Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and
Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).
ISBN 978-0-333-92143-2 ISBN 978-1-4039-1459-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4039-1459-0
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
Contents
List of figures and tables viii
Introduction ix
PART I GROUPS FOR CHILDREN
1 Why run groups? 3
Advantages of group work 3
Limitations of group work 9
2 Types of group 12
Theoretical approaches for producing change 12
Types of group 16
Open and closed groups 23
Topic-focused and system-focused groups 24
Deciding on the type of group and theoretical approach 24
PART II PLANNING A GROUP PROGRAMME
3 Identifying the needs of a target group 29
Formulating assumptions about the target group 29
Normal child development 31
The influence of developmental level of functioning 45
4 Planning to run a group 48
Deciding whether a group treatment option could meet
identified needs 48
Deciding where it is practicable to run a group 49
Preparing an overall plan 53
v
CONTENTS
5 Designing a group programme 62
Overall programme design 62
Individual session design 66
PART III RUNNING A GROUP PROGRAMME
6 Assessment of children for inclusion in
a group programme 79
The purpose of assessment 79
The assessment process 83
7 The leader’s role 98
Leadership style 98
The stages of group development 104
The needs of individual children 111
The influence of group structure 114
Debriefing and supervision 114
8 Counselling and facilitation skills required
in children’s groups 117
Counselling skills 118
Processing skills 124
Facilitation skills 127
Managing behaviour 134
9 Evaluating the outcomes of a group
programme 139
Evaluation of a programme using pre- and
post-measures 140
Continuous evaluation of a programme 141
Formal and informal data gathering 142
Assessment of cost effectiveness 146
Assessment of leadership style and model of practice 148
Conclusion 150
PART IV GROUP PROGRAMMES FOR
PARTICULAR PURPOSES
10 Domestic violence programme 154
The weekly programme 154
vi
CONTENTS
11 ADHD programme 168
The programme 169
12 Self-esteem programme 180
The programme 180
13 Social skills programme 195
The programme 196
APPENDICES 212
Appendix A Activities and games 212
Appendix B Work-sheets 230
References 246
Index 255
vii
List of figures and tables
Figures
5.1 Plan for the overall design of a group programme 63
5.2 Plan for designing the programme for a single
group session 67
5.3 Weekly session template 72
6.1 An assessment process 84
9.1 The continuous evaluation method 142
9.2 Session evaluation form 144
9.3 Session evaluation form 145
9.4 Session evaluation form 146
Tables
4.1 Planning Guide 54
5.1 Developing topics and themes from assumptions 64
5.2 Illustration of variations within a session programme 74
6.1 Assessment instruments for use with children 92
10.1 Group programmes 153
viii
Introduction
As authors, we wonder whether readers might be interested in
knowing something of our backgrounds and the reason why we
undertook to write this book. We decided to write the book after we
ran workshops to train people from the helping professions who were
interested in running groups for children. Participants at our work-
shops became enthusiastic about the possible beneficial outcomes of
running groups for children and encouraged us to incorporate ideas
generated from the workshops into a book.
Our own backgrounds have been helpful to us, when working with
children in groups, in enabling us to make use of conceptual ideas and
practice methods from the three professional disciplines of occupa-
tional therapy, counselling and psychology. Kathryn is an occupa-
tional therapist who has a Masters degree in counselling. David is a
counselling psychologist with a strong interest in the experiential
therapies such as Gestalt therapy. Kathryn spent many years as an
occupational therapist working in psychiatric settings with children
and young people (initially at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital
in the USA, then at the Mater Children’s Hospital, Brisbane, and later
at the Child and Youth Mental Health Service, in Maroochydore,
Australia). While doing this work she was able to compare the relative
effectiveness of working with children individually with that of
working with children in groups. David, as a counselling psychologist,
has had extensive experience in group work as a trainer in Gestalt
therapy. He has specialised in working with children, young people
and their families, and was for some years the coordinator of a family
therapy unit at a crisis counselling centre, Lifeline, in Brisbane,
Australia.
Later, we both worked for an agency (the Talera Centre) that
specialised in working with children and young people who had been
exposed to violence in their families. During this time we became
excited by the way in which groups for children and teenagers were
powerful in helping these youngsters to change, feel better and learn
more adaptive behaviours.
ix
