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Commission on Group Work in Social Work Education

The co-chairs are Carol Cohen ([email protected]) and Mark Macgowan ([email protected]). Committee members include Jen Currin-McCulloch, Linda Ducca, Charles Garvin, Olga Molina, Barbara Muskat; Joan Pittman, Mark Smith and Andrew Spaumer. IASWG members interested in joining the Commission are very welcome! Please contact the co-chairs with your interest and questions.

News & Updates

  • Invitation to a Mutual Aid Action Team: Let’s Reconnect Social Groupwork to the Social Work Profession
  • Bi-annual Report to the Board (November, 2021)
  • [May 2021] Calling all Group Workers! The IASWG Standards have been helpful for many people, but they are missing items about online Social Work with Groups. We need your help! A subcommittee of IASWG is developing Standards related to online Social Work with Groups.* As part of the process, the Committee would appreciate your comments about how group work may be different when done in an online environment. This survey is available in in English, French, German, and Spanish, and will remain for a limited period of time so please click complete the survey as soon as you can. Thank you for your participation. *Members of the subcommittee include Andrés Arias Astray, Samuel Benbow, Lorrie Gardella, Charles Garvin, Será Godfrey-Kaplan, Ephrat Huss, Cheryl Lee, Mark Macgowan, Barbara Muskat, Andrea Rowell, Mamadou Seck, Shirley Simon, Mark Smith, & Greg Tully.
  • Group Work Track at the US Council on Social Work Education Conference
  • Calling all Syllabi for Posting:  We have posted new group work syllabi on the IASWG website but we need more! Please send your syllabus to [email protected]. We welcome members’ submissions that focus on group work, or include group work as part of a course at any educational level.
  • Upcoming International Conferences:  In addition to planning to present and attend our IASWG Symposium, we encourage submission of group work-related abstracts to a number of international conferences.  Click here for some conference opportunities and deadlines in the next few months. Feel free to share your announcements by email to [email protected].
  • Consider Applying for IASWG SPARC

 Additional Resources​

The original mandate of the Commission on Group Work in Social Work Education Committee focused on the strengthening of the teaching of social work practice with groups in social work schools and programs in the United States.

At first, through joint efforts with the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) in the United States, two texts devoted to teaching social work with groups in the advanced practice curriculum and in the field were published. Work with CSWE and the Baccalaureate Program Directors (BPD) in the US ensured that workshops on teaching social group work were available at each of these organization’s annual conferences. 

The work of the Commission was expanded in 2002 to Canada. Outreach was made to all the Canadian Schools of Social Work, inviting schools to develop relationships and work cooperatively to enhance students’ preparation for social work practice with groups. The Commission is continuing to explore possible relationships with CSWE, BPD, and Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE). We will also focus on ways to develop stronger relationships with other social work education organizations and schools internationally. An ongoing project of the Commission has been the exemplar group work course syllabi exchange, available to IASWG members. The syllabi exchange features syllabi for undergraduate, masters and doctoral level coursework and can be found in the Resources section of our website.

Currently, we are focusing our efforts on enhancing the teaching resources section on the IASWG website. If you have a course syllabus or other teaching resources for consideration for posting on our website, please send them to: Carol Cohen or Mark Macgowan.

In addition, IASWG members are invited to send Emily at [email protected] announcements of your group work-related presentations at conferences and announcements of upcoming conferences with opportunities for expanding group work and IASWG internationally.