Ep. 29 - Social Work and Group Work: Where the Magic Happens! (w/ transcript)

She put her hands on the table and said, "You girls have saved my life, and I've even put mascara on for you."

Come and listen alongside Lis and Mim to this magic-filled episode that looks into the world of an anonymous social worker and the group they are leading. We wish you all a very lovely and safe World Social Work Day!

Credits:

Hosts - Lis Murphy and Dr. Mim Fox.

Producers - Ben Joseph & Justin Stech

Contact us online at www.socialworkstories.com, follow our facebook page or use the handle @SOWKStoriesPod on twitter or instagram.

Do you have thoughts, want to contribute a story or question for the team, or just say hello? Send us an email on socialworkstoriespodcast@gmail.com - we'd love to hear from you!

Podcast Transcript - Episode 29: Social Work and Group Work - Where the magic happens! (transcript)

To cite:

The Social Work Stories Podcast, 2020, ‘Episode 28: Social Work and Group Work - Where the magic happens!’ (transcript), accessed online [insert date here], <www.socialworkstories.com>.

Date Published: 17/03/2020

With special thanks to Katie Wicks for transcription.

Photo by Perry Grone on Unsplash

Justin – Welcome to the Social Work Stories Podcast. We wanted to let you know that this episode was recorded several days prior to Australia, the US and many other countries declaring states of disaster due to COVID – 19. With each passing day we continue to learn more about the gravity of this unprecedented pandemic. Our thoughts and care go out to all of our social work tribe around the world, you families and the people you work with who have been impacted by this virus.
Music Plays
Lis – Good evening Mim.
Mim – Hi Lis.
Lis – Welcome to the Social Work Stories Podcast.
Mim- Thank you, I am so pleased to be here.
Lis – Come and sidle up beside me, because it’s only a few more sleeps till when?
Mim – This is exciting. So next Tuesday its World Social Work Day again. You remember last year,
Lis – I do
Mim - World Social Work Day. Not only did we record a really interesting episode where we talked a lot about World Social Work Day, but also together we went to some World Social Work Day events.
Lis – In fact you and I have spent World Social Work Day together for the last five years I think
Mim – I think your absolutely right
Lis – We are coming up to our five-year anniversary
Mim – In so many ways. And this year is kind of a weird year for World Social Work Day. It’s the year when I feel that social workers around the world, around the globe should be coming together in unity.
Lis – And, wouldn’t that be good, except I can’t promise. So, the conference that I’m organising that you’re going to speak at,
Mim – Yeah.
Lis – We still do not know whether it’s going ahead.
Mim – I know, I know.
Lis – Because of the good old Corona virus.
Mim – COVID-19 has really effected us in so many more ways than we could ever have predicted. And the hysteria in Australia, I mean I’m sure our listeners have heard about how hard it is to get toilet paper in our country right now.
Lis – And toothpaste now.
Mim – And the other day I was at the supermarket and there was no oil Lis, like what is happening.
Lis – It’s when the coffee stops, that’s when there is going to be rioting in my street, I can tell you.
Mim – (laughs) I know, I hear you loud and clear, and I. It just really concerns me that this time when we have just had bush fires, and floods and every event under the sun. We should be coming together, and actually, thanks to this lovely virus and it’s hysteria, then actually we don’t. And we have already had some of our colleague’s events next week for World Social Work Day, another conference, has already been cancelled. And I was planning on going there as well. And then the one that we’re supposed to be doing together next week is on the verge of being cancelled.
Lis – Look soon it will get to a point where even our little podcast crew can’t be in the same room.
Mim – That will be a sad, sad day my friend.
Lis – Because numbers keep dropping. It’s going from no more than 100, no more than 50, I hear that at the children’s hospital no more than 10 can meet in a room.
Mim – No more than 10 in one room.
Lis – Yes.
Mim – Ooh my gosh!
Lis – Mmm
Mim – Well that just throws any social work meeting out the window.
Lis – A game of cards is virtually thrown out the window.
Mim – If you’ve got 10 people speaking at the exact same time.
Lis – Yes, yes, so fingers crossed. But in any case, our thoughts go out to all our Social friends and colleagues.
Mim – Our tribe.
Lis – Our tribe.
Mim – And the fireside is that much more virtual.
Lis – And I will pop a glass of champagne to celebrate.
Mim – World Social Work Day?
Lis – World Social Work Day.
Mim – Absolutely, me too. Hopefully we can do that in the same space this year Lis, (laughs).
Lis – And what better way to celebrate World Social Work Day than a good social work story.
Mim – Absolutely.
Lis – Which I think we have one.
Mim – We do. You know with all the social work interventions that we do all the time in our profession, do you have any favourites?
Lis – Like I. Ok, So, So, all of them. But, you know I do like a good group.
Mim – I know you do, and we’ve spoke about groups a couple of times on this podcast. Because both of us have run groups at different points in our careers, right. I tend to think that every time I am in a social work class, I’m running a group. But, absolutely. We’ve both run therapeutic groups, psychoeducational groups. Have you ever run a purely educational group, that then didn’t turn into a psychoeducation group?
Lis – Ooo! You know I nearly said a cancer survivor’s group, but of course not. I mean yes you might be talking about nutritious food or sleep, but invariably the stories come in, and the connection goes on within the group and the group dynamic becomes a therapeutic process. So, I guess not really.
Mim – Yeah, so that’s right. I think it’s the bi-product of running groups with vulnerable peoples, with issues that have bought them together, yeah. That then, when people start telling their stories it does actually become therapeutic in nature and in the dynamic. So, this is a really interesting story today that we’re going to be discussing. Where a social worker is running a group for women who have come out of domestic violence relationships. And it sounds like there actually in a bit of a transition phase these women.
Lis – Yeah, I got that impression too. I have to re-listen to it, but my impression is that mostly they have newly left or are thinking about leaving the violent relationship.
Mim – It is a space for really strong social work skills.
Lis – Ooh yeah.
Mim – Yeah, so let’s have a listen and then come back.

Music Plays

Social Worker – My area of social work is predominately as a group facilitator. So, I work in a number of organisations where I facilitate or co-facilitate groups. One type of group is a parenting group, with parents who have been in conflict for a fairly long time often. And they are either court mandated or there voluntarily, trying to get to focus a little more on their children. And the other groups that I run, are with women. One is a self-esteem group and the other is a group for women who are currently in violent relationships, so, domestic violence relationships. Or who have recently left a violent relationship, or have a history of going back to numerous relationships that aren’t healthy. So, they’re not therapeutic group, they are educational groups. However, when there’s a lot of emotion in those rooms they tend to have a little bit of a therapeutic touch to them.
So, one of the trickiest parts I think of facilitating those women’s groups is that there is a lot of emotion in the room. And people, depending on their personality, where they’re at with their journey, often want to share their story. And as a facilitator we need to ensure that all members are safe in the room. And we don’t know , I am certainly powerless in knowing, where they’re at with their journey or whether or not I’m even going to have any impact on them. And in fact, that’s one of the things that I love most about group work, is that it ends up being the group members that do all of the work and bring about the biggest change rather than the facilitator themselves. So, the job as the facilitator is to establish safety and if somebody is about to over share and potentially compromise that safety in the room, it’s the job of the facilitator to stop them. However, that can be tricky because I think as women one thing we don’t like to interrupt, and also I want to be respectful to the person who is wanting to tell their story. But I think you’ve got to support the majority of the women in the room and stop them sometimes before they say things that can be potentially upsetting or make the entire group unravel.
And I think often of this one particular group that I was running, and there was about a dozen women in the room and this one particular women. She was small in stature but had a very big presence in the room. She was currently an addict, she was using at the time and was quite aggressive. This group went for eight weeks and she was quite aggressive in one way or another. Sometimes before group started, during group. It was a really challenging group to manage. But she was very big on punctuality and so I worked that out pretty quickly. And when you’re working in a women’s centre, it’s difficult to start things on time because stuff happens. Women come in and they’ve got an immediate issue, and sometimes you’ve got to be with those women at that time, rather than starting the group on time. And usually people will understand, but this one particular women, I don’t think she had a lot of control at the time over many parts of her life. And perhaps being punctual was the one thing that she did have control over. So, she let me know that and she would regularly point to her watch as we were talking or when the group was about to start. And one of the most essential parts in setting up a group in my opinion, and having a successful group where people continue to come back each week, is safety for everybody in the room. So that means that, especially when there has been violence, when there may have been yelling or physical violence, isolation and I was very concerned with this particular woman because things would happen in the group. Like, we would put out mandalas for the women to colour in and one of the group rules that the women had established was that one person spoke at a time. And this one young women in the room asked another person for a mandala, and then the group member that I was talking about sort of fired up and said “only one person is allowed to speak at a time here”. And very quickly there was risk of, well the look on every bodies faces said it all. She was quite terrifying and there was a real risk of people not turning up week after week because of this particular women’s behaviour. So I had to at that time, say to this woman, in front of everybody, we need to ensure that we’re respectful to everybody and I appreciate that you don’t want people to speak over the top of each other, and absolutely that is one of our rules. But I think we need to be a little bit flexible around that to ensure that everybody feels comfortable.
And I think that’s one of the main learnings, and one of the things that I carry with me into each group, is that you really need to appeal to the mass, to the majority of people in the room. Over and above the needs and wants of one person. And that doesn’t always work, because this particular participant, I got the sense that she absolutely didn’t like me and didn’t want to be told. Because she was right, that was a group rule, that we don’t talk over the top of other people. And I did say that to her, that she was correct. But also it was kind of just really disruptive through-out the weeks.
This woman had a really strong trauma background, an incredibly big background. She would start up each week walking through the kitchen and as I would be kind of getting the fruit and things prepared, she would say things to me like, ”hurry up we need to start on time”. Just like that, and I kind of, I have never come across anything like that before. And I felt that I did sort of have to put her needs ahead of some of the others at times and it was tricky. And what I ended up doing was taking some of the other women during the break, the break is a beautiful time during group work I think, where you can have that moment where you’re not quite so guarded. And I would say to them, are you ok with what’s going on. And one of the magical things about what happened in that group was that the women were really compassionate towards this particular participant. And even though she yelled, and I think she yelled at someone pretty much every week, usually me, but she yelled at everybody. And it would come out of know where. But they were really compassionate towards her, really kind. And that’s the beautiful thing that I love about group work. I was watching this thinking, well I might be having a bit of sweaty palms here and you’re not really sure where it’s going to go, and how am I going to contain it. But the women didn’t seem to be like that. And as I took them aside, rather than this participant, and said are you ok, are you alright to come back, is there anything you need. They were all sort of, no it’s fine, I think it’s ok. And they would actually make this participant cups of tea. It was quite fascinating to watch, when these very vulnerable and frightened women stepped up to help somebody else. And that’s the kind of magic that can only take place in a group setting, I think.
One of the things that was really interesting about this, was that this participant didn’t really contribute. In fact, when we went round and spoke about, even did a check in to see how people were going, she would either pass or just not answer me. I thought that she was really unhappy at the group. I took her aside after the second week and we spoke, and I said, “Are you ok” and she said “Nah, don’t like it” and gave me very little information about where she was at. And I said to her, “I just want you to do one thing, and I just want you to keep turning up. If you can just keep turning up that’s all I’m asking of you. One foot in front of the other”. And she did, she kept turning up, she was certainly very punctual, and by about the fourth week there wasn’t as many aggressive comments coming from her, and we were making sure that we started on time. So, she had very little impact in some ways on the group at that stage because she was saying less. But then, by about the sixth week, which is when I often think the magic happens in group work, every bodies got to know each other a little bit better, and the facilitators are certainly saying less and the participants are working harder, and you’ve got through that storming stage of group work. And she just very calmly put her hands on the table, both of her hands on the table, and she was a very big presence in the room so everybody kind of looked around and saw that she was going to say something and she said “ I just want you all to know that, eight days before I started this group I attempted suicide and you girls have saved my life” and she said “I even put mascara on for you”. And it was one of those beautiful group moments where I think the women were validated in their kindness to her, and they felt like they had a real worth, that I think some of them probably hadn’t felt in a long time. And she kind of validated all of that for everybody with those couple of short sentences and showed a beautiful vulnerability in herself that she had certainly not shown before, she was quite terrifying. So, to be able to say that, and the short sentence about the mascara meant a lot as well, because we had talked a little bit about self-care and that was obviously important to her. She cared enough about herself to do that. And even if she felt like she was doing it for others it was just a beautiful moment in group work, that I think couldn’t ever happen in any other setting. And that’s the magic I think of group work. And that coming together and validating one another and learning that you’re not alone. And particularly with domestic violence where women are often isolated and the only messages that they are being given are often from a perpetrator that are telling them that they’re not very good at much, and worthless, and got no friends and isolated and all those horrible things that happen. And here was this woman who had been shown a little bit if kindness and had come such a long way. And it was just a really lovely moment to know that these women had been told they’d saved her life.

Music Plays

Lis – Picking up the last bit of our conversation, your question about can a psychoeducational group be therapeutic?
Mim – Yeah
Lis – Well, I’ll flick that question to you first.
Mim - Ok
Lis - Was this psychoeducation group therapeutic?
Mim – I would say absolutely.
Lis – In what way?
Mim – Look, we touched on before whether women were at different points in the leaving the relationship journey, yeah. And I think what this social worker demonstrated was being able to speak to the women at their different points. As they needed to be worked with. So, she talked a lot about the magic that happens, and I love that she used the word magic as well, but the magic that happens in between, in all those in-between spaces right. So, before the group starts, in the break, after the group. Those side conversations that actually allow the women to be individual.
Lis – That look like she’s hosting an afternoon tea.
Mim – Yeah!
Lis – But like you say, that’s the magic that’s going on. The checking in with all the individual women. And ensuring that safety, a sense of safety is being felt by the group. Which would have been essential in a group like this. But also, she was needing to check because there was that very strong member of the group that made her needs voiced very clearly and strongly. And she needed to be checking the impact of that. But I mean I think the skill of this social worker was in the tension she would have been holding, watching the group, scanning the individuals within the group, getting a sense of how they are, checking in on them. But also allowing this woman a voice.
Mim – Yeah!
Lis – Because I got a sense Mim, this is possibly one little area of her life she might have had a feeling of control in. That the group one, started on time. And two, that they adhered to the group rules.
Mim – Yeah, (laughs). Look we all like a bit of punctuality, you more than others Lis, but I think you’re right. I think that the sense of safety in a domestic violence group would take on that extra layer. You’ve got a general psychological safety that’s needed in a group setting, but then in this setting you’ve actually got a group of women where safety has not been a feature of their lives, right.
Lis – Absolutely.
Mim – So their capacity to have control, and to have a locus of power about their every day, it doesn’t exist
Lis – No, look, and I think there is that fine line that she was walking between, there may come a time when the needs of that one individual woman was, sorry the needs of the group as a whole overrode the needs of that individual woman. So, I think she was keeping that in check all the time around the safety issue. Because we knew that this woman was incredible vulnerable but also volatile.
Mim – Is that ok Lis, to prioritise the majority of the women in the room over a vulnerable individual? I mean where do you stand on that? Is it the needs of that individual that reign supreme in that dynamic, or do we think about the group as a dynamic or function that’s bigger than that? And I guess I’m thinking here about the fact that the individual perspective is so incredibly western, yeah. And in social work as we know it in western countries, predominantly that’s the framework that we come from. A very individualised perspective. It’s not the case around the world, right. We know that indigenous methodologies and knowledges, we know that eastern knowledges position the community, the family, the society in a very different way.
Lis – Look you raise some really great points, and I think to just bring it back down to purely skills now. I would say yes, that sometimes the need of the group does override the needs of the individual. Not to say that you would not be looking at something, let’s say for instance that women was unable to sit in that space without making the other women feel unsafe. Let’s say she had become incredibly volatile, and was exploding at the, you know if someone said something, and she started to shut the group down.
Mim – Yes.
Lis – Or people were not coming to the group anymore, it might be that the conversation needs to take place with her about what else could be done to support her. Because at the moment, the group was not able to be the place for her. And of course, that sounds really clumsy. But I think you do have a responsibility to the group. And there are times in a person’s recovery that they may not be able to sit within a group. And sometimes, you know I have run groups where I will individually interview each member of the group to see if they’re going to be up to the group and what the group was going to be doing and what the goals were.
Mim – Yeah and I think that’s actually really important, that streaming process or assessing process that might happen before a group starts. Particularly if it’s a closed group that goes for a period of time.
Lis – And some people would have said, look could you maybe have deferred her coming to the group until she was sober. I mean I’m not saying that that was the right thing to do. But there would be some group facilitators that would have questioned her being there. But I mean we can look now and see, that that group actually was able to determine that they were able to care for this woman.
Mim – So it seems to me, just before we move into where the care and compassion really sat in this story, it seems to me that that’s the skill of the social worker in the story. Is to actually step back from what’s happening all around them and be able to identify, when is the turning point where this behaviour from an individual now derails the group.
Lis – She would have also, she had that sense of the life of a group too. So, she used Tuckman’s model, you remember she was saying, that at the four-week mark things started to calm down.
Mim and Lis – Week six was when the magic happened.
Lis – That would have been the performing that was going on.
Mim – Yes.
Lis – There would have been some storming going on.
Mim – Yes
Lis – And so she also had that as a template in which she is observing the group, the life of the group but also the individual members and the impact that it was having. They were saying to her it’s ok, I’m ok.
Mim – That’s right, they were all saying it without saying it and the skill that she had was in picking that up actually. So, let’s talk about that week six magical moment. But before we do that, let’s go back to week one of the group, where she said that, she met this woman and said to her, all you need to do in this group is turn up. That’s all I expect of you. Yeah. Now, week six there’s a pay-off from that comment, right. Week six is when the woman said, before I came on that first day, I had attempted suicide. Now that social worker would never have know that.
Lis – No
Mim – When they made that comment. So that social worker was setting safety, setting a safe space to be vulnerable in, regardless of actually having knowledge that that was so acutely needed at that moment. And then we get to six weeks, and she says I attempted suicide that day, I came to the group and now I’m in a space of safety. And the kindness and compassion that came out of that group Lis, I mean that blew me away.
Lis – Yeah, beautiful.
Mim – Yeah, and when she made that comment, I’m just trying to remember the actual wording, I even put mascara on for you.
Lis – You girls have saved my life, I’ve even put mascara on for you.
Mim – Now to acknowledge the importance of that sentence, right. Amazing. For me that’s skill, that’s where the skill of the intervention comes in. That there’s a linking between the experience of the woman before she even turned up, the comment that the social worker made for her in week one, and then the revelation that came at week six.
Lis – Yeah.
Mim – And then the social worker being able to support that group, to show kindness, and compassion at that point of disclosure. That’s important work, really important work.
Lis – And what a great pay off for that social worker because it wouldn’t have been easy. I got a sense that it was hard to like this client.
Mim – (Laughs).
Lis - And, it raises that question, you and I were chatting about earlier, can you still do good work with someone you don’t particularly like?
Mim – Yeah, I know it’s hard.
Lis – It would have been hard to like this person.
Mim – Yeah.
Lis – But of course she would have shown her respect.
Mim – Yes.
Lis – And she would have accommodated her. She would have possibly had an ulcer bleeding every Wednesday morning when she walked in thinking, oh my god what are we going to have today.
Mim - But it comes back to the values of social work, right. It comes back to dignity, self-worth, client self-determination. Fundamentally whether we like someone or not isn’t the point. We know we have colleagues who are doing really hard work with perpetrators, right. With all sorts of people who have found themselves in situations where they are not good people, right. And actually, we have to come back to the values of our profession on those days, those really hard days.
Lis – That’s true. Now can we, with the last few minutes, can we just do another plug for the value of group work.
Mim – Please, and I know we’ve done this before on this podcast. But come on people, get back to some group work.
Lis – That is absolutely right, like one of the things that I thought about the beauty of a DV group right, is that many of these women would have been in complete isolation.
Mim – Yeah.
Lis – Experiencing a lot of shame around the fact that they were in violent relationships. No one on one therapeutic counseling intervention is going to give you the sense of, these people really know what I am talking about. I am hearing my story
Mim – That’s right.
Lis – Who would have believed it was someone like you, I thought it was only people like me. But, it’s also you and you and you.
Mim – That’s right.
Lis – And you understand it when I say, there were elements of this relationship that I also really loved, and you’re not going to judge me.
Mim – And I think that’s the quality of the safety that the social worker sets up in the group. But it’s also because there is a dynamic that happens in the group. Like you say, that just can’t happen in an individual intervention. So, social workers, our virtual tribe out there, rethink group work if that’s something you haven’t been doing and you think there may be space in the organisation that you’re working at. Really give it some thought and see if there is an argument that can be made for a group. Whether it’s purely education, whether it’s psychoeducation, whether it’s purely therapeutic.
Lis – So Mim, we need to wind up now.
Mim – I know, I know. It’s time Lis.
Lis – But before we finish up, I wanted to say a big, big, big thank you to our student Katie, who transcribed all of our eco social work episode. What a massive task.
Mim – A massive task.
Lis – So thank you Katie and thank you for doing that last interview as well. We appreciate the input that we have from our wonderful students.
Mim – We really do. A lot of people have been asking us for transcripts of the episodes. And so that transcript is now available on our website socialworkstories.com. And look I think it’s great that people can see transcripts of the episodes. We say so much in these episodes Lis, I wouldn’t be able to remember what we talk about. So, I think it’s great, an amazing feet for a student to do a transcript as well, and Katie’s been an absolute star with that. I wanted to read out a review that one of our beautiful listeners has left us. I’m an MSW student and since a fellow student posted a link to this podcast on our discussion board, I have been binging this podcast, thank you for what feels like the ability to do a mini placement in so many areas. Will be recommending to all future and current social workers I know. Isn’t that great.
Lis – That’s fantastic.
Mim – Look I think it’s fabulous that this podcast could be a mini placement, I think that’s really awesome. Considering how hard it is across Australia to find placements for social work students. I think this is a good thing.
Lis – A mini placement with our podcast.
Mim – I think it’s really good. And also look fantastic that this student has contacted us and left this review. If you’re a student listening to our podcast, then send it round, really send it out there to all your colleagues and get people listening and then write us reviews, send us an email, it would be really good to hear from everyone. If people want to do that, they need to email us on socialworkstoriespodcast@gmail.com . They can also contact us on twitter and Instagram Lis, right.
Lis – You can Mim at SOWK-StoriesPod. You know but if you don’t want to write anything, I’m happy with the five stars, just review us with the five stars.
Mim – I ‘m always happy with the five stars.
Lis – Because then the other students will find us easier than, you know than those people who might want to vote us with two stars.
Mim – That’s absolutely right.
Lis – That doesn’t help our student friends at all. So anyway, happy World Social Work day everyone. If you can’t gather find one social worker, grab a toilet roll.
Mim – (laughs) Fight it out in your local supermarket and post it on twitter and tag us in it, we’d love to see that.
Lis – I love that. A photo with a toilet roll.
Mim – Thanks everyone. Happy World Social Work Day Lis
Lis – You too Mim, you too Justin, you too Ben, you too Hamish, welcome to the tribe
Mim – Bye everyone