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Group-work and Facilitation 
Aim:
To introduce students to the concepts of Group-work and facilitation in Creative ArtObjectives:
To brainstorm with students their understanding of group-work and facilitationTo come to a working understanding of group work and facilitation
To be able to undertake artwork with a group with a clear understanding of facilitation and instructional approaches
Humans are naturally orientated towards groups. We live and work among groups of people.
Groupwork has much to offer and as facilitators in creative art how can we harness the power of groups for the benefit of the individuals as well as the group?
Liebmann (2004) in her book Art Therapy for groups makes a number of points that help us to understand the benifets of creative art with groups
Why use Groupwork
- For social learning
- For the provision of mutual support and problem sovling
- For learning from each other
- For developing each persons capacity for role playing and modeling
- For developing each persons abilities and talents
- For individuals whose needs are met by the work of the group
- A democratic method of power sharing when structured correctly
- A cost effective way to engage a facilitator with people
- Can be difficult to organise and plan depending on the participants and the setting
- Can be dificult to resource depending on the activities
- Can reduce one to one time with participants - especially if there are people with high needs
Benefits of Creative art Engagement
Personal
- Creativity
- Spontaneity
- Confidence building
- Self-validation
- Realisation of own potential
- Developing autonomy
- Increasing motivation
- personal development
- Freedom to make decisions
- Experiment and take risks
- Try out ideas
- Express feelings, emotions, conflicts
- Work with fantasy and unconscious
- Gain insight
- Develop self-awareness
- Ability to reflect
- Ordering of experience visually and verbally
- Relaxation
Social
- Awareness, Recognition and appreciation of others
- Co-operation, involvement in group activity
- Communication
- Sharing of problems, experiences and insights
- Discovery of universality of experience/uniqueness of individual
- Relate to others in a group, understanding of effect of self on others, and relationships
- Social Support and trust
- Cohesion of group
- Examine group issues
Yalom's Curative factors of groups:
- Instillation of hope
- Universality
- Imparting of imformation
- Altruism
- The corrective recapitulation of the primary family group
- Development of socialising techniques
- Imitative behaviour
- Interpersonal learning
- Group cohesiveness
- Catharsis
- Existential factors (such as inevitability of death) (Yalom and Leszcz 2005)
Why use Art?
- Everyone can join in at the same time, at their own level. The process of the activity is important, and a scribble can be as much of a contribution as a finished painting
- Art can be another important avenue of commuication and expression, especially when words fail. The spatial character of pictures can describe many aspects of experience simultaneously
- Art facilitates creativity
- Art is useful in working with fantasy and unconscious
- Art products are tangible and can be examined at a later time
- Art can be enjoyable, and in a group this can lead to shared pleasure
Structured and unstructured groupwork
- Always structured -specified group task, common purpose
- Usually structured - occasionally group decides to work individually
- Usually unstructured - work individually but sometimes work together
- Always unstructured - group meets but all work individually
Being conscious of your role; Facilitator and instructor
- Facilitator - guiding, holding, maintaining safety, supporting, 'walking with'. Opening up a space (freedom) so the participant can own the process and use internal and external resources to learn. Non-liner path to learning.
- Instructor - formal, leader, direct teaching 'walking ahead'. Closed path with set objectives in the learning to be achieved in a liner fashion. |Certain outcome.
Keen observation of the group allows the facilitator to 'tune in' to the participants and gauge needs and levels of ability.