Ethics

Student Support Group Report

Group Dynamics

The group I attended was a student support group. The group consisted of first year on campus students that are attending a local college. The students’ gender and age varied. There were three females and two males present in the group. Two of the five group members were still eighteen years old while the remaining three had already turned nineteen years old. The leader of the group was a twenty one year old female. The leader is currently a junior at the same college that her group members currently attend.

According to Jacobs et al, “trust, commitment, and genuine caring of members for one another are important for this type of group”. (Jacobs et al, 2012, pg.43) With this in mind, I paid special attention to how the leader assisted the members in finding trust within the group. In addition to trust, commitment, and caring, another dynamic I looked for, which is also important to this type of group, is commonality. (Jacobs et al, 2012) The leader seemed to have properly chosen the group members because they shared several commonalities. They were all new to campus living, they all had the same class status, and they were all experiencing some level of stress that they felt were associated with making the transition to college life.

Beginning Stage

The student support group that I attended was in the beginning stage. During this stage, the leader introduced herself to the group. The leader also went on to verbally list a few things the group could expect her to cover in the first few minutes of the group. The leader stated that she would explain the group process, share about her leadership style, and participate in getting to know each other. The leader gave the topic for the group, which was stress. The leader gave the cues the group members should identify and associate with her redirecting the group (i.e. raising her hand when someone is being “long winded”). Each member was asked to introduce...