Psycho-educational IMR (illness management recovery) group therapy paper

Assignment Overview:

Successful groups are well designed from the outset. They have a clear purpose and are delivered with a plan. This assignment provides students the opportunity to prepare a proposal for a new group that you would like to conduct with a target population of interest to you. Your task it to describe the planning and delivery of a well thought-out group, describing the key factors required from conception through final evaluation. 

Format: The paper should be 10 pages +/-2. A title page including student name, class and section, professor, and title of assignment is required.  Use the section headings below to structure your paper. Include the honor statement on the title page. On my honor, I have neither received nor given any unauthorized assistance on this examination. No abstract or running head is necessary. Do not use initials or real names to identify your clients. All names in the paper should be pseudonyms.  You may use “I” and “we” and should use a direct and academically appropriate style of writing.   Grammar and syntax matter and will constitute a portion of the grade. Write in a clear and engaging manner. Include your last name in the title of digital files.

References The paper should be guided by course readings and other relevant literature and must include 3-5 references at minimum, one of which is the Yalom & Leszcz text (with year and page numbers). APA 6 reference and citation style is required.  Literature supporting your choices of format, approach, and interventions should be liberally sprinkled throughout the paper. In your appendix, if you use handouts from published resources or materials from a group with which you have been involved, you must cite the resources appropriately.   For in-text citation (e.g. the Yalom book), be sure to include the page numbers when citing books, e.g. (Yalom, 2005, pp. 32–33).

Paper Outline:

Section 1-Title, Purpose, Format of the Group:  Name of group and why that title was chosen. Define your group as one of the following types: mutual support, psychoeducational, or therapy. Explain why this group is needed.  Cite literature supporting use of the model and/or type of group you are using and why it is well matched to the target population. State the goals of the group. What is the plan for the number, frequency, length, and time of meetings and what is the rationale for those decisions?  Identify whether the group is open or closed in terms of population and whether it is a fixed number of sessions or on-going (and why). Discuss the pros & cons of your chosen format. Describe your role as a leader or co-leader, and what you will do in that role (active, reflective, educative etc.). 

Section 2- Group Conditions: What physical space, financial, child-care, transportation, food or other arrangements will need to be considered?  If necessary, how will you advocate for what you need to run the group? Describe how you will plan for your group sessions.  Include an appendix with a sample outline for at least three group sessions and the major topics to be covered (if defined topics are part of your group).

Section 3-Recruitment, Engagement:

Recruitment Who is the population you are trying to recruit and what demographic or personal history qualities affect the likelihood that they will connect to the group?   What screening procedures will you use for inclusion/ exclusion?  What intersectional identities are in play and how will the blend of potential participants be influenced by demographic and cultural characteristics?   What problems do you anticipate with recruitment, permissions, or screening?

Engagement How will you orient and engage the group at the first meeting?   How will you manage issues of power and privilege, including your own? How will you work with differences of race, gender, economic status, age, education levels or other personal characteristics of group members, particularly in conjunction with your own intersectional position and privilege? What challenges do you anticipate in engaging the group members?

Section 4- Group Interventions and Cohesion: What intervention modalities do you expect to use most often?   Be sure the interventions are appropriate for the type of group you are running. For example, if this is a mutual support group, specific facilitation skills are more likely to be a customary intervention, mini-lectures may be part of a psychoeducation group, while in a psychotherapeutic group, reflection might be a regularly used intervention. Be detailed about your interventions. Include references from the literature to support the use of this type of treatment for your population. If there is no evidence base for your population, cite evidence from the closest population and note the lack of research relating to your target population. How will you promote group cohesion? Name two potential challenging scenarios that may arise and describe how you would intervene to manage them.

Section 5- Evaluation: How will you assess how the group is functioning over time?   How will you evaluate whether the group’s purpose/ goals have been achieved? How will you evaluate your role as the facilitator in engaging, assessing and intervening with this group? Summary of why this proposed group should take place.

Grading Rubric for Group Paper (30 points) 5 points Writing and References: (grammar and syntax; APA references) 5 points Purpose and Format 5 points Group Conditions  5 points  Recruitment and Engagement 5 points Group Interventions and Cohesion 5 points Evaluation