Power of Groups: Solution-Focused Group Counseling in Schools

"A valuable addition to the growing conversation about solution-focused practice in schools. Cooley provides the nuts and bolts of solution-focused group work with students of all ages."
―John J. Murphy, Professor of Psychology
University of Central Arkansas

"The book is a pleasure to read, extremely informative, and helpful. The organization and content teaches a skill in a way that makes the reader feel empowered."
―Cynthia Knowles, Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist and Consultant

A fresh, dynamic approach to build on students′ strengths and encourage positive mental health.

Solution-focused brief counseling helps students improve their well-being by concentrating on goals and solutions rather than dwelling on problems. This resource shows how to use this highly effective approach for group counseling sessions so that students can dialogue and learn alongside their peers.

Research-based and practical, this unique guide gives school professionals the foundational theory and knowledge to adapt solution-focused group counseling techniques for any topic, curriculum, or grade level. Readers will find:

• Case studies of real students encountering real problems
• Forms, permissions slips, and sample letters for starting a group
• "Do This" and "Avoid This" sections
• Sample agendas for elementary, middle, and high school levels, complete with activities, session scripts, and discussion questions

Help students address common issues by creating lively, engaging group meetings using this powerful, goal-oriented methodology.

Leslie Cooley worked as a school psychologist in public schools for 20 years. Initially hired in 1978 to facilitate counseling groups, she approached the task with enthusiasm and massive naivete as she had little training in group counseling. Based on her natural optimism and easy way of relating to students, she developed a variety of skills and techniques that were closely related to the later work of the innovators of solution-focused counseling.

That was 1978 to 1983. Since that time, Cooley has earned a PhD and is a licensed clinical psychologist in California. In the 1990s, she transitioned from working in the schools to teaching at the graduate level in school psychology at California State University, Sacramento. Her mission was to surreptitiously infiltrate the school system with what were once radical ideas about building on strengths. In that, she has been successful… successfully mainstream! Solution-focused strategies are no longer radical, and books like Seligman’s Positive Psychology have become bestsellers. Cooley continues to do a limited psychotherapy practice with a focus on families and she continues to believe that most of the problems kids develop can be successfully managed at the school level, where any intervention is less intrusive than a referral to someone outside the school.

As a graduate school trainer in school psychology, Cooley has been teaching group counseling to school psychologists for over a decade. She is systematically robbing graduate students of the character-building experience that she had scrambling to learn to run groups in the schools. However, in the schools today, there is plenty to scramble about already!