Web Exercises
Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.
1. International Social Work with Groups
This is the website of the International Association for Social Work with Groups. Students are assigned to make notes on the following questions about the website and submit a summary to the instructor.
- Read the information under the “About” tab; then go to the “Resources” tab, and read “Practice Standards.”
- What theory or theories of group work seem to serve as the basis for the standards?
- Go to the “Resources” tab, and locate information about a type of group that interests you, and make notes about how you could use the information in developing a group with a population you plan to work with.
- Write a paragraph about ways in which the website does and/or does not convey a sense of an international community of social workers involved in providing services through the modality of group work. Do you consider this an online community?
* LO 8.2 Define small groups, and identify some of their uses in social work practice.
* LO 8.5 Critique five theories of small group processes.
2. Compassion Fatigue as an Issue for Employees and Employers in the Helping Fields
http://www.compassionfatigue.org/index.html
This is the website of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project. Students are assigned to familiarize themselves with the website and submit answers to the following questions in writing to the instructor.
- Write a paragraph about the recommendations on the website for employers and how you could utilize this in your job search.
- Look at the three scales found on the website: Professional Quality of Life, Compassion Fatigue, and Life Stress Self-Tests. When would the information each of them provides be most helpful (to the helping professional and to the employer)?
- In what specific types of work do you think employers should regularly assess the employees’ compassion fatigue?
* LO 8.11 Apply knowledge of small groups, formal organizations, and communities to recommend guidelines for social work assessment and intervention.
3. Community Organizing as an Established Profession (Not Confined to Social Work)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/fashion/12organizer.html?_r=0
This is the URL for an article by Sara Rimer published in the New York Times, titled “Community Organizing Never Looked So Good,” in response to public awareness of the fact that President Obama had been employed as a community organizer.
- Students are assigned to read the article and find additonal, current information about any of the community organizers or community action networks mentioned in the article (for example, Marshall Ganz or PICO).
- Students share information they found with the class or with a small group of students or post it on the class Internet site.
- Discuss, in class, any activities in the local area where community organizing skills are being used or are needed.
* LO 8.11 Apply knowledge of small groups, formal organizations, and communities to recommend guidelines for social work assessment and intervention.
4. Research on People’s “Sense of Community”
http://www.communityscience.com/pdfs/Sense%20of%20Community%20Index-2(SCI-2).pdf
This is the website with information about the Sense of Community Index (SCI) and the actual scale and scoring information for the index (David Chavis, Sense of Community).
- Students read the background of the SCI and locate one article on research that has used it.
- Students meet in small groups and discuss the article they found.
- Students discuss, in their group, the actual survey and the directions for administering it and scoring it and then self-administer it and compare their results.
- Each group summarizes their results, adds their suggestions as to how they can utilize the SCI in the future as social workers, and submits this in a brief report to the instructor.
* LO 8.9 Define community, territorial community, relational community, and sense of community.