MSW 551 ( Module 4 Global Factors in Assessment )

Module 4: Assessment at a Systemic Level

Group Assessment Last week we used a couple of metaphors to describe individual and family assessment: climbing to the top of a hill where past, present, and future are easier to see; and exploring a house, knowing that some rooms are harder to enter than others. When assessing a system that has come together for a purpose, a better metaphor might be a vehicle. Although families do have purpose – ensuring each other’s development and survival – they are not meant to drive all family members in one direction. In contrast, a group that has formed to deal with caregiving, or food addiction, or creating a community garden has goals that unite the group. When we assess groups, we can ask questions that are easy to remember when we think of a car.

Questions

• Who drives the car? Do people take turns driving? Are there any backseat drivers?

• Where is the car heading? Is it lost? Is it going toward a different destination than intended?

• Who are the passengers? Can they do anything to contribute? • What fuels the car, gives it the energy it needs to keep going?

Group assessment is a unique process Why? Because with groups, in contrast to individuals or families, we are much more focused on present functioning than the influence of the past. Although each group member brings plenty of personal history to the present group interactions, it is neither possible nor necessary to consider that history when assessing a group's functioning. We are trying to answer different questions here. We want to know if a group can accomplish the tasks for which it came together. Individual group member history may affect this ability profoundly, but what we hope to understand is more how than why. If we know what is getting in the way, we can address it behaviorally. Certainly, there are times when it is important to ask a group member in what ways the past may be interfering in the present. Insight may help the group member act on the understanding that "that was then; this is now." But that is more a matter of intervention than assessment. Assessment leads to identify problems in group functioning, rather than telling us how to solve them.

Since group assessment relates back to its purpose, it is important to define that purpose before engaging in assessment. For example, if a group meets to help caregivers of loved ones with dementia to cope better, then understanding how that group functions will relate back to that purpose. Maybe the group members enjoy

indulging in community gossip. They bond over telling stories about the latest intrigues. They function well as a social group, but not as a support group. Another group has formed to put forward action plans regarding neighborhood safety. Members have strong disagreements about the causes of crime in the neighborhood, and the conversation soon becomes partisan. If the group had formed to have lively ideological debates, it might be serving its purpose. But if the goal is to agree on a plan, something may need to change.

Think About It

Think about a group you are leading or hope to lead. What is your current assessment of the group’s needs and the norms needed to meet those needs?

Practice Exercise There are various models of group functioning and development; here, we apply a model that integrates previous research and identifies ten variables listed below (Ragg, 2012). Each of these variables needs our attention if a group we lead is to be successful. To familiarize yourself with each, match an example of a problem with that variable.

Assessing Group Problems – Part I

Drag and drop to reorder the list in the examples column below to match the group variables on the left column.

Group Variables

1. Group definition: Groups can fail because they do not really act as groups, but rather as collections of people. For a collective to be a group, it must have structure and purpose.

2. Group pragmatics: When a group is planned, one needs to anticipate practical barriers to participation and find ways to avoid them.

3. Group composition: Who joins a group can either support its development or destroy it. Common concerns, risks of subgroups, and personalities that can work together are important variables to consider.

4. Group engagement: What keeps group members showing up? What is their level of commitment? Assessing motivation for engagement is crucial throughout the life of a group.

5. Group identity/cohesion: Do group members see themselves as belonging to the group, do they feel close to other members and does the group have a collective identity? Without cohesion, no other goals can be met.

Examples of Problems

1. Group conversations are chaotic, people come and go, and people seem to show up for the free food only.

2. Several members keep missing the group due to childcare needs, even though they really want to be there. The group meets in the evening.

3. After a lot of initial enthusiasm, a group of climate change activists loses momentum because they don’t have a clear goal.

4. Only one member of the group is Latinx and is asked often by white members to speak for all Latinx people.

5. Members of a group for learning interpersonal skills don’t seem to have a lot in common and hold back from getting to know each other.

Assessing Group Problems – Part II

Drag and drop to reorder the list in the examples column below to match the group variables on the left column.

Group Variables

1. Group climate: Each group has an emotional tone that may change from meeting to meeting. If that tone is not conducive to group functioning, it needs examining.

2. Group interactions: Groups develop patterns in how they communicate, and sometimes these patterns move the group toward its goals, but sometimes these patterns interfere.

3. Group norms: Group leaders need to shape the informal and formal rules of group interaction from the beginning. When group norms undermine its purpose, the group needs help identifying and changing them.

4. Group leadership: Both the designated leaders of the group and its members provide different forms of leadership. Over time if group members don’t assume responsibility for the group, it can’t reach its full potential.

5. Group development: Each group goes through stages of development, on its way from a collection of individuals to a functioning collective.

Examples of Problems

1. A group for coping with depression has a very flat tone and low energy. Not much is happening.

2. One group member of an LGBTQ support group dominates the conversation at almost every meeting. Other members don’t challenge this.

3. Members of a diabetes management group constantly give each other nutritional advice based on their own experiences, and the advice is politely rejected.

4. Group conflicts in which members take sides keep derailing the group from reaching a point where members can give each other constructive feedback.

5. Members of a PTSD group individually ask the group leader for help, but don’t provide any feedback to each other. They wait for the group leaders to answer questions.

Diagnosing the Problem (And It Might Be You!) Different group theories lead to different diagnoses. A group leader who believes that groups primarily go astray due to recapitulation of family dynamics will attempt to unearth and modify these dynamics. A group leader who has a feminist interpretation of group problems will identify the roles of gender socialization and sexism in the group's functioning. There is no "right" interpretation - only useful ones. Assessment and intervention constantly dance with each other in group development and leadership. The group leader, based on a hypothesis, says something or remains silent. The group responds in a certain way, either confirming or challenging the hypothesis by shifting its behavior or not. The group leader takes in this new information, modifies the hypothesis, and tries something new. This process happens in other forms of intervention as well, but in groups there are so many variables that every speaking turn may be the result of a new assessment.

If you are currently leading a group, you know how overwhelming the amount of data can be when trying to assess how well the group is functioning. It may be easy to forget your own role in this, and the role of a co-leader if you have one. Plus, there's your relationship with that co-leader and how the two of you share leadership. Here are some helpful questions you can ask yourself and discuss when you debrief from a group meeting and plan the next one.

Group Leadership Assessment Questions

Anxiety: How am I managing my anxiety about being a group leader? How is that anxiety communicated to the group? What is that anxiety about? Power: How am I managing the balance of allowing the group to interact and staying on task? Am I exerting too much or too little control over the group process? Do my coleader and I share power effectively? Do our roles reflect a clear agreement about who does what? Challenge: Are certain group members difficult for me to manage? What feelings, thoughts, and behaviors do they elicit in me? What alternatives do I have, and how can my co-leader help? Skills: What leadership skills am I using effectively, and which ones do I struggle with? What makes those skills hard for me to use? How can my co-leader help? Diversity: How do my cultural background and biases affect my role as a group leader, my understanding of the group’s members, and the group’s perceptions of me? Do I need to address any differences and similarities with the group?

Assessing Communities Before we can engage in macro-level social work, we need to understand the community in which that action will take place. We need to know about the needs, resources, barriers, and experiences of communities and their members. It may seem self-evident that a community is dealing with environmental injustice, or mass incarceration, or an opioid epidemic. But knowing what problems exist is not the same as knowing how they act upon, are experienced by, and are responded to by a community. Even the word "community" can be misleading - it implies a level of uniformity and cohesion that may not apply to the people you are trying to help. Especially now, in the age of social media, dynamic demographics, and fragmentation along lines of interest and opinion, there might not be a lot of "community" in the neighborhood, tribal area, or town where you are situated. One metaphor that may inspire us to ask relevant questions is that of the community as garden.

Questions

How healthy is the garden? Are the conditions good for growing? How did it get this way?

What grows best in this garden, and what doesn’t do so well? What would change that?

Who tends to the garden? What water and fertilizer does it get? Is it being poisoned?

Are parts of the garden receiving more attention than others? Why is that?

Types of Communities One way to understand how a community functions is to evaluate the degree to which it is internally connected and connected to outside resources. As seen in the table, based on Warren's typology (1978), integral communities are those we consider the most resilient and the healthiest to live in. People know each other, do things together, and identify as members of the community. They are also not cut off from the larger world and have access to the resources beyond the community that are needed for its well- being. What external resources are lacking in the community your practicum site serves? Examples might include infrastructure improvements, community health clinics, libraries, and grocery stores.

Parochial communities are internally connected but not externally. Like Mennonite or Orthodox Jewish communities, some may consciously choose to isolate themselves from others based on their values. Other parochial communities, like a West African enclave in a large U.S. city, may be parochial because they are neglected by and have difficulty accessing or navigating the larger world. Other transitory communities have the opposite situation: they aren't cohesive, and they act as steppingstones to integration into a larger world. Some are more stable and are already hooked into external resources, but they maintain a low sense of community identification. Affluent suburban

communities may be examples of these diffuse communities. Finally, communities with both low internal and external connections fall into two types. Mosaic communities are made up of smaller cohesive units that tend not to communicate with each other, and don't have access to outside resources either. Anomic communities stretch the definition of the word "community." People are cut off from each other and from the outside world.

High external linkages Low external linkages

High internal linkages Integral Parochial

Low internal linkages Transitory/Diffuse Anomic/Mosaic

Why do we need to classify a community? Knowing its degree of communal identity, its openness or closure to the outside, and its ease of access to institutional resources from beyond its borders can all help us determine the needs and strengths the community possesses, but also how difficult community engagement may be. Of course, communities do not necessarily fall into these neat categories, and they are often in flux. Gentrification, forced dislocation from armed conflict, the global coronavirus pandemic, and the hollowing out of factory towns are all examples of such change.

Asking the Right Questions in the Right Way

The nationwide protests against the killing of George Floyd and other black men and women reveals the simmering frustrations, systemic injustices, and suffering from racist attitudes and behavior within communities of color. Such an experience also brings to light the evolving sense of unity not only within communities but beyond them. It is easy for people with privilege to ignore the daily realities of racism and social injustice until they surface, and the media can shape our narratives about these events in ways that can either bring us together or further divide us. If you were embedded in the neighborhood in Minneapolis where a policeman murdered George Floyd while three other police stood by, what questions would you have? Whom would you ask, and what data would be important to gather to answer your questions?

Assessment is never without a guiding goal and a target population (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2009). Do you want to improve community relations with the police? Do you want to improve accountability for police when they use excessive force? Do you want to bolster the support networks that members of black and brown communities can turn to in times of crisis and tragedy? Do you want to change the underlying economic factors that undermine the psychosocial health of such communities? Do you want to bring marginalized voices into the mainstream media to change racist narratives about protesting? Consider how each of these goals leads to a different type of assessment.

Do you need to conduct a field study in which you embed yourself, observe, and conduct interviews; a power structure study in which you discover formal and informal community leaders and outside influences; a community analysis in which you bring together statistical data with qualitative data; or a problems and services study in which you identify how well community needs are being met by social services (Hardcastle et al, 2011)?

The assigned video provides an example of a community needs assessment process, but there are important steps not addressed in that video having to do with barriers to change. Once you have identified a needed change, its roots in inequality, and community members' perceptions of that need, you will need to find answers to important questions about the change process itself (Jeffries, 1996).

Questions

1. How big of a change is needed and how will you measure it? 2. How robust are the community’s resources to meet this challenge? 3. What resistance to change may occur, from whom, and why? 4. How much power can community members or representatives of service

organizations like yours wield to make decisions that can implement this change?

Returning to our example of police brutality against people of color, how would you find answers to the questions above? Let's say you find, through research on the street, the internet, and at City Hall, that:

1. The change that community members require to feel safe is that there are no more deaths or injuries from excessive force, and that black and brown people are not pulled over more often than white people, that prevention and investigation of crimes occurs with the same procedures in all city communities.

2. The community's resources are not adequate, because the police department lacks funding to implement adequate officer recruitment, training, and disciplinary action. The current police commissioner is sympathetic and is taking symbolic steps but needs to form a partnership with universities that can provide technical support for officer empathy and de-escalation training.

3. Resistance is widespread within the police department due to its racist culture and lack of diversity, as well as the police union's agenda of protecting its members. The mayor's office presents as being all for change, but in an election year the mayor is trying not to alienate more conservative constituents who view the reaction by community members as overblown and focus more on isolated incidents of violent protest.

4. Community members have little representation on advisory boards, elected offices, but direct non-violent protest actions are putting increasing pressure on local and state government, and your non-profit is forming a coalition with local churches, synagogues and mosques as well as the local Community Development Corporation.

You can see how, with a thorough community assessment, solutions can emerge that take the barriers to change into account. One final word of advice: be just as reflective a practitioner as you would be assessing an individual, family, or group. Dulmus et al (2012, pg. 67) argue that "a listening/learning/exploring style and philosophy should guide an initial community assessment. Practitioners need to critically reflect on their location (factors such as class, race, gender, ability, sexual orientation); their personal history with communities; and how these influence their values, perceptions, assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes in their approach to assessments." You are not a neutral data-gathering machine; you are a living, breathing human being whose own story will influence your interactions with communities at every turn. It's this humanity that makes you superior to any fact-finding robot, because your humanity is what allows you entry into the community, what makes you realize that every question you ask can lead to community empowerment and development. By knowing there is no escape from your subjectivity and by owning it, you stand a much better chance of being accepted as a fellow gardener.

Summary In this week's module we have provided some helpful metaphors, questions, and theories to guide assessment of groups and communities. As you engage in macro practice or micro-within-macro practice at your practicum site, you are no doubt discovering that effective assessment takes time and careful thought. Driving forward with group intervention without asking relevant questions is like trying to drive a car without knowing if it has gas, mechanical problems, or even where it is headed. Pushing ahead with community organization or development without understanding the community is like tending to a garden blindfolded. You are more likely to do harm than good.

The global spirit of group and community assessment requires us to not only diagnose problems and strengths at a collective level. It also asks that we be aware of the historical moment in which we all live as a species. Today, the need for social justice across the world has been exposed more nakedly than ever by the environmental and health crises spurred by irresponsible leadership. Change is in the air, but it is not inevitable. By assessing where we are in this process of reckoning, we can provide hope grounded in specific actions that communities and the groups within them can take. We will return to this theme in Module 6 when we consider macro interventions. Next, we return to the level of individuals and families - but without ignoring the multiple contexts in which they live and the diverse responses they have to those contexts.