Group Counseling and Children Case Study

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Group Counseling for Jake Green

Group Description

The group will be designed for children suffering from Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The group will be for young children aimed at focusing on self-awareness. The children will be taught self-management skills like positive self-talk techniques and self-soothing behaviors. All this is aimed at improving their social skills and improve interactions with others. Having a group of ADHD children will allow Jake to recognize he is not alone and he will be able to interact with other children who have the same challenges. The group to be created will be a psychoeducational group because the purpose is to develop the members feeling, thinking, and behavioral skills by using a structured learning format. Psychoeducational groups are aimed at high-functioning individuals who have a deficit in specific areas (Pitschel-Walz et al., 2006). The group will be focused on educating group members regarding their disorder and how to cope with the disorder, which is beneficial for Jake Green. A psychoeducational group is the first step for successful school-based treatment for children and adolescents. A psychoeducational group would offer Jake long-term effects, and he would be better able to interact with other children and family members. This is because psychoeducation offers vital information that will enable him to deal with his condition. The knowledge provided will allow Jake to know his diagnosis and understand what it means, what to expect, and will be aware of his overall trajectory of the condition. The more Jake is informed, aware, and knowledgeable of his condition and how this affects his life and the lives of others, the more he can have control over his life. This will also allow him to better deal and live with his condition. All this can only be offered by a psychoeducational group. A psychoeducational group would empower Jake, and those close to him and help to diminish any barriers to a successful treatment through the acknowledgment of the condition and recognition of the importance of medication and psychotherapy.

Psychoeducational groups are also provided the group members the opportunity to incorporate what they learn in groups sessions in their lives using skill-building exercises (Shechtman, Bar-El, & Hadar, 1997). This is beneficial and offers long-term effects because the group members are able to practice what they learn and implement it. This way they can easily adapt to different situations and know how to deal with various scenarios when the group ends. Considering that Jake is hyperactive and inattentive, he needs to learn how to cope with his underlying condition of ADHD. Many people have not identified this as the main cause of his problems and once they all know they can be more supportive to him. Jake also needs to learn how to cope with the condition in a normal way if he is going to lead a normal and full life. The only way this would be possible is through group therapy, and psychoeducational groups offer this knowledge. Interacting with other children who have the same condition is also beneficial to Jake as it allows him to know and learn that he is not alone. Dealing and learning with others is also a great way of understanding the effects of his condition and how he can manage the condition.

Rationale for the Group

The main aims for the group is offering the group members an opportunity to learn about their condition and understand that they are not alone. Interacting with other with the same condition within the group allows each one of them to see and recognize they are not alone and they can all learn from one another. It has been noted that children suffering from ADHD do care about others it's just that they unaware of the need to consider others perspectives. This is a huge problem, and it is for this reason that most ADHD children are considered to be arrogant and unruly. The group will be aimed at addressing this concern and teaching the children how to look at things from the perspective of others. Within a group, the children will be dealing with each other, and they would be learning vital social skills that would improve their peer relationships and teach them interpersonal interaction skills, which would facilitate their success in the classroom and at home. Learning interpersonal interactions is vital to the children will allow them to understand how to deal and interacting with others in the society, and for Jake, this would be quite beneficial because he would no longer be bullying other children and he would be invited to play with other children.

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The short-term goal for the group is allowing the member to accept their disorder and the impact it has on their lives. The group will also have a goal of educating the family members on their children's disorder and how they can support the children. The needs for change will also be taught, and both the children and their families will have to understand the different ways that this will impact their lives (Furr, 2000). The long-term goals for the group are having group members who fully understand their condition and are able to lead a normal life irrespective of their condition. Helping the group members to cope with their condition, and learn about other resources available to them during their group sessions. Groups sessions are not effective on their own, and group members should understand the effect that taking their medications has on their full recovery. The group goal is for the group members to always take their medications when needed. Without information on the importance of this, it is difficult for the group members to always take their medications.

Group counseling is beneficial to Jake because it offers him the opportunity to interact and participate in activities with other children who have the same condition. Within a group session, Jake is able to practice what he learns, and he can learn more about his condition from others within the group. Learning that others are suffering from the same condition and that he can help them is a great way of learning. This is quite different from individual counseling where Jake would have one on one sessions with the counselor. but there is no way to practice under the counselor's watchful eyes what he has learned. Individual sessions are also limited in the participants understanding of their condition.

Group Leaders

The group leader should have a master degree in counseling or a related field, licensed by their state, and trained to work with groups and families. The group leader will be the facilitator and educator, and they will need to have core characteristics like warmth, caring, positive regard, and genuineness for others. The leader also needs to have knowledge and skills in three primary areas. The first is understanding basic group process and how people interact within groups. Some of the subsets of this will include how groups form and develop, how a leader affects a group, and how group dynamics influence individual behavior in a group (Sonuga-Barke, Daley, Thompson, Laver-Bradbury, & Weeks, 2001). The second is a leader should have a basic understanding of interpersonal relationship dynamics that include how people relate to each other within group settings, how to handle problematics behaviors in the group, and how an individual can influence other group members behavior. The third and final one is the leader should have basic teaching skills, especially for psychoeducational group leaders. This is because the leader will be organizing content for teaching in the group, planning participant involvement, and delivering information in a meaningful and culturally relevant way. The leader should also have basic counseling skills like active listening, reflecting, supporting, attending, and clarifying. It is vital that one also has some advanced skills like terminating and confronting. Leadership skills are vital as they will allow the leader to know how best to handle and lead the group towards the main objective of the group. Leadership skills will also allow the leader to encourage withdrawn members to be more active and ensuring that all members have an opportunity to participate.

With a co-leader in place, it is vital to have a clear understanding of each one's roles to ensure there is no overlap and the group members do not take sides with a particular leader. The role of the co-leader is to assist in the group sessions. With a co-leader, there will be shared equal power to ensure that the group members do not feel one of us is more authoritative (Shechtman, 2014). This will also improve management aspects. The co-leader will be assisting in the development of content and process variables. Each of us will have similar responsibilities, and if one is not there, the other can comfortably run the group. The responsibilities will be fully shared, and we shall be discussing and planning the group sessions before hand together. This will ensure that we can have a united front and we are both well….....

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