How to Form a Group (Group Work Practice Kit)

Form groups that empower growth, learning, and change
Drawing on the latest research on group work, this accessible book will help you master key concepts and skills. Providing insightful coverage of diversity and multicultural issues, How to Form a Group focuses on all aspects of forming an effective group, including:

• Strategies for overcoming environmental roadblocks to group formation, such as agency staff lack of support for groups
• Key practices to consider when organizing groups
• Practical guidance on how to attract the "right" members to the "right" groups
• Concrete suggestions for organizing, marketing, recruiting, screening, selecting, and composing groups
• Differentiation between groups that are remedial in purpose from those that are more preventive in scope

How to Form a Group is part of the Group Work Practice Kit: Improving the Everyday Practice of Group Work, a collection of nine books each authored by scholars in the specific field of group work. To promote a consistent reading experience, the books in the collection conform to editor Robert K. Conyne’s outline. Designed to provide practitioners, instructors, students, and trainees with concrete direction for improving group work, the series provides thorough coverage of the entire span of group work practice.

This book is endorsed by the Association for Specialists in Group Work.

Robert K. Conyne, Ph.D., William A. Allen Boeing Endowed Chair & Distinguished Professor, Seattle University, 2013-14 and Professor Emeritus from the University of Cincinnati, is a licensed psychologist, clinical counselor, and fellow of the Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW) and the American Psychological Association. He has amassed 42 years of professional experience as a university professor and department head, counselor, administrator, consultant, and trainer, and, most recently, as a consultant to military personnel and their families at U.S. installations both at home and overseas. Bob has received many awards, including Eminent Career Award from the ASGW; Lifetime Achievement Award in Prevention, Society of Counseling Psychology of the APA; Distinguished Alumni Award of Distinction from Purdue University; and has been designated a Soros International Scholar. He was the 2009 president of the APA′s Division of Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy, and in 1996 was president of the Association for Specialists in Group Work. With over 200 scholarly publications and presentations including 14 books in his areas of expertise (group work, prevention, and ecological counseling), along with broad international consultation in these areas, Bob is recognized as an expert in working with people and systems. With colleague (and wife), Lynn S. Rapin, Ph.D., he also helps people plan and prepare psychologically for their upcoming retirement, using the holistic approach they developed, "Charting Your Personal Future." His most recent publication is the Prevention Practice Kit, co-edited with Arthur M. Horne, Ph.D., immediately preceded by the Handbook of Group Counseling (edited, Oxford University Press, 2011).  Forthcoming is the Group Work Practice Kit (edited, Sage).  In all these edited books, Bob also authored contributions.