chapter 1 0 GROUP COUNSELING Goeping students in need of counseling services sounds like such a simple and great idea—you see more students in need, consolidate your time, and get to observe group dynamics and teach interpersonal skills. In reality, simply putting a bunch of kids with issues together in one group can be a recipe for disaster! I remember in my first year, the middle school where I was assigned really wanted me to work with the kids with anger management issues, so I dutifully pur together a group of eight boys exhibiting acting- out behavior. Within ten minutes of starting the group, I realized this was a huge mis- take, Kids were doing WWE wrestling moves on each other and cursing each other out, and I had no control over the group. I managed to get them under control for eight of the longest weeks of my life, but then they all banded together and went on a stealing and vandalism spree together. It wasn’t the type of “group cohesion” I was hoping for. I basically inadvertently formed a gang. Even though I was taught group process and theory in graduate school, I didn't know how to apply that information to running a suc- cessful group in the school system. STARTING A GROUP: FACTORS TO CONSIDER In order to have a successful counseling group, you must spend a good amount of time preparing. Counseling groups must be well thought out in terms of group composition, level of structure, focus, and logistics, When you ave first starting out, the whole process can be a bit overwhelming, but once you get your groups going, you will start to estab- lish a rhythm and learn what works and what doesn't. Each time you conduct a group, you will be more comfortable, and the process will be more streamlined. Each group you 157The School Paychologiet Survival Guide 158 run gives you more tools for the next one. This chapter will help you with some of the preparation phase of creating a counseling group at your school. Conduct a Needs Assessment at Your School First, you will want to determine what the school’s most pressing need is for group coun- seling services. This can be done informally by talking to the principal and teachers about what kinds of problems they are having with students. It can also be done more formally through the use of a schoolwide intervention team. The needs for counseling are so vatied by school site: when I ask what types of groups might be beneficial for the students at the school, the issues the staff want addressed range from grief, loss, divorce, and having parents in jail, to social skills training for students on the autism spectrum, combating perfectionism, and fostering cultural pride among certain ethnic groups. Many times, there are requests for working with students with oppositional and defiant behaviors. Conducting the needs assessment does not commit you to leading any certain type of group, but if the school staff identify a group focus that is pressing for them, you will build goodwill by listening to them and developing a group to target that need. Deciding What ‘Type of Group to Run In gencral, I put groups into three different categories: problem-based groups, rsilience-based groups, and combination groups. In general, in a problem-based group, you are working with students around a certain problem—lack of friends, acting-out behavior, or internalizing problems, such as depression, anxiety, grief, and so on, Students in the group can range from showing extreme difficulties with the problem to being a positive peer role model who docs not experience the problem. In general though, the students are mostly homogenous in that they share a particular challenge. It doesn't mean that you focus on the problem per se it just means you have grouped the students by a common challenge they experience. In the resilience-based group, the focus is on building strengths, regardless of the prob- Jem—teaching friendship and social skills, developing talents, or learning a new skill. The students are more heterogencous in that they do not share one main atca of difficulty ‘Whether you select a problem-based group or a resilience-based group with a range of kids who are “at risk’ for a variety of reasons is up to you, You may have materials available for a scripted group program for a certain population, or you may have been trained in a more open-ended group counseling process. Both types of groups can be helpful to students. One piece of advice I was given early on from a supervisor is to bring your own strengths and interests to the group. If you are artistic, you might want are to be a big part of your group. I have conducted groups that involve dance, as this is an area of interest for me. [ have even held a knitting club with middle school students (boys and girls!) where they learned to knit while we talked about issues in middle school. A coun- sclor I know loved cooking and gardening, and she brought that theme and related activ- ities into her girls’ group. You can bring in all kinds of activities and interests to the group, and the students often profit from your enthusiasm as a result Your focus for the group will depend on your training and the materials you have avail- able to you. In general, a scripted or curriculum-based package of materials is an easier way to begin your group counseling experience than tying to start with an open-ended group. ‘There are many such programs that you can draw from. Some examples of curriculumGroup Counseling packages you can purchase to structure your groups include Lego-based play groups for children on the autism spectrum, trauma-focused group play therapy, group sand-play therapy, group play therapy for anger management, and group play for students with ADHD. (See School-Based Play Therapy, 2010, edited by Athena A. Drewes and Charles E. Schaefer, for further information aboue these specific groups.) You can also adapt individual counseling techniques to the group setting. For example, you might use a social skills cur- riculum such as Darlene Mannix’s Social Skills Activities for Special Children (2008), which includes lessons covering a range of skills, from making and keeping friends to accepting rules. For a more cognitive-behavioral approach, What Works When with Children and Adolescents: A Handbook of Individual Counseling Techniques, by Ann Vernox (2002), offers such activities as role plays, songs, and games to address certain social-emotional challenges Finally, you also might consult with a school-based counselor if you have one at your school, as he or she may have some off-the-shelf counseling curricula to share. You can also develop your own group and create your own agenda and focus. I tend toward the blended approach, in which the referrals are for a certain risk group (problem- based group), but the process is more open ended and strengths based (resilience-based group). At my schools, I have developed a boys’ group and a girls’ group that I run every year, and my schools have come to know what the group is about and who might be a good candidate for the group. The advantage of having an ongoing resilience-based group is that I can tailor it toward any population of students. The group I run is called the Talent Group; it began as a group targeting students with oppositional behaviors (a need iden- tified at my middle school). Instead of teaching the students how to comply with rules through a series of lessons, the group focuses on building their strengths or “talents” and developing group collaboration skills. We have a group project, so they must learn how to cooperate, negotiate, disagree without being disagreeable, and talk to cach other respect- fully. The value of the group process is chat they learn these skills in a real context of coming together to achieve a common goal, rather than through isolated lessons. I learned from my early mistakes, of course, and I think carefully about group composition before putting a bunch of students who are argumentative and oppositional in a group together! Deciding Who Is in Your Group I really cantt say it too many times: careful consideration of group composition is key to a successful group. To illustrate the concepts behind forming a group at your school, I will use my Talent Group as an example, To put together the initial referral list for my group, I solicit the expertise of the teachers and support staff who know the students best. If you participate on a schoolwide intervention team, you can ask the team mem bers to nominate candidates for the group. It is important to tell chem that you want a range of students, from those who are high functioning to those ranging from low-risk to high risk for the targeted problem. In my case, the “problem” is oppositional behav- iot. It can be very difficult for staff to think of the range of kids. Typically they will give you a referral lise of all the high-risk kids, In order to cast a wider net in terms of refer- tals, I usually take staff through a process of explaining my group and soliciting referrals using a rubric for sorting students into “low,” “medium,” and “high” risk for the target problem, Exhibit 10.1 is an example of a form I use to get my referrals for groups com- posed of students with oppositional and defiant behaviors. 159