1st Edition

Support Groups Current Perspectives on Theory and Practice

By Janice H Schopler, Maeda J Galinsky Copyright 1995
    142 Pages
    by Routledge

    142 Pages
    by Routledge

    Support Groups: Current Perspectives on Theory and Practice provides a framework for understanding and examining supportive group interventions. It provides descriptions of different kinds of support groups and alerts practitioners and educators to the factors they should consider in planning, implementing, and evaluating support group services. The book also offers guidance in using innovative approaches to providing support services through computer groups and telephone groups.

    Human service professionals and social work educators, practitioners, and students will find these topics covered in Support Groups:

    • evaluation of support groups
    • a support group model
    • guidelines for support group practice
    • innovative use of support groups
    • issues in support group practice

      The purpose of this book is to examine state-of-the-art support group practice. Support groups are conceived as the center of a continuum of supportive group interventions, overlapping with self-help groups at one end and treatment groups at the other. The chapters are placed within the context of the open systems model developed by the editors. This model provides a framework for understanding factors that affect support groups, for guiding intervention, and for evaluating their outcomes.

    Contents Expanding Our View of Support Groups as Open Systems
    • Supportive Group Interventions With Caregivers of Frail Older Adults
    •  Evaluating Process, Outcome, and Satisfaction In Community-Based Cancer Support Groups
    •  Women With Postpartum Psychiatric Illness: A Professionally Facilitated Support Group
    •  The Unique Social Ecology of Groups: Findings From Groups for African Americans Affected by Sickle Cell Disease
    •  Making It Happen: From Great Idea to Successful Support Group Program
    •  My Partner Is Hurting: Group Work With Male Partners of Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse
    •  A Support Group for Families of Armed Services Personnel in the Persian Gulf War
    • Telephone Support Groups for Caregivers of Persons With AIDS
    •  Computer-Based Self-Help Groups: A New Resource to Supplement Support Groups
    •  Index
    • Reference Notes Included

    Biography

    Janice H Schopler, Maeda J Galinsky