How to design a new group at your field placement
Imagine that you have been assigned to design a new group at your field placement (or at your
social work place of employment). Briefly answer the questions in the outline below about the
type of group you would like to create.
1. Title of proposed group, type of group (choose one type: support; therapy;
psycho education), and type of agency setting (e.g., tertiary care medical/teaching
hospital; hospice; inpatient psychiatric hospital; high school; prison; outpatient
community mental health center; nursing home)
2. Statement of purpose for the group, and your role as leader or co-leader
3. Group membership/composition/screening
a. Specific population for the group
b. Criteria for inclusion/exclusion
c. Size of group, open/closed format, mandated/voluntary, rules/policies
d. Screening procedures, if any
4. Recruitment
a. Specific recruitment strategies for advertising and obtaining participants
b. Problems that you anticipate and how you will resolve them (including
obtaining special permission for client to attend: e.g., physician’s order in
the case of health care setting, or teacher/principle in school system)
5. Contact
a. Number, frequency, length and day/time of meetings
6. Environment
a. Physical space
b. Financial arrangements
c. Any other special arrangements (e.g., childcare, transportation, food)
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To organize the paper clearly, use the above main headings and sub-headings; however,
to save space, you should abbreviate them (you can decide on your own abbreviations).
Also, although you need to double-space the paper, you do not need to waste space by
double-spacing between each “sub-heading” within the main heading for a short paper
such as this. For example, you might consider organizing this way:
1) Title, Type, Setting
2) Purpose, Role
3) Group Membership/Composition/Screening a) Population: blah, blah blah. b)
Criteria: blah, blah, blah. c) Size/Format: …. d) Screening: …
Finally, although not mandatory, consider use of italic or bold for required elements (e.g.,
sub-headings/course concepts) so that you clearly convey to the reader (instructor) that all
elements are being addressed.
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Brief summary overview of proper APA format for citing electronic books:
In-Text Citations
For in-text citations of paraphrased material, provide the author and date, as for any APA
Style reference. To cite a direct quotation, also provide page numbers if the e-book has
page numbers. If there are no page numbers, you can include any of the following in the
text to cite the quotation (see section 6.05 of the Publication Manual, pp. 171–172):
• a paragraph number, if provided; alternatively, you can count paragraphs down
from the beginning of the document;
• an overarching heading plus a paragraph number within that section; or
• an abbreviated heading (or the first few words of the heading) in quotation
marks, in cases in which the heading is too unwieldy to cite in full.
Excerpted from:
http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/06/how-do-you-cite-an-e-book.html
Exception For CSW II Group Proposal Paper:
Make a notation on the cover page indicating that your citations are from the e-book
version of Yalom’s textbook, specifying the method you used to cite (e.g., e-book page
number; paragraph number; brief heading with paragraph number; page numbers
assigned by the PDF viewer, etc.).
Bottom line: For this paper, avoid lengthy headings that direct the reader to the material
referenced in the e-book, as this is a very short paper using an instructor-modified APA
style. But, for other papers in this course and your other courses, proper APA format for
e-book citations should be followed (See APA manual for full details).