The Research On Outlier In The Group Work

As one of the three major social-work methods,‘group work’ which has beenapplied in many fields plays a more and more significant role in helping clients. However,this method results in positive effects as well as some deficiencies, which makes thegroup work a little bit hard to achieve its ideal functions. Generally speaking, the serviceobject of group work is the members of a team and they both possess homogeneous andheterogeneous characters. By forming group dynamic with members’ homogeneity,thereby group work excavates their potential and promotes development. However,heterogeneity also exists when there is an ‘outlier’ within the group, which affects theproceeding of group work. Furthermore, there will be greater problems with outlierswhose growth will be negatively exerted.This study is on the basis of the group-work practice in Wuhan Hubu LaneCommunity. During the practice, the writer finds that outliers in the group have somefeatures in common, namely they are not willing to cooperate with the staff; havetensions with other group members, which have negative impacts on the team and oftenhinder the interaction process. Aiming at these problems, the writer carefully observedand recorded their team performance. Meanwhile, in-depth interviews were carried outwith their family members.Through group work, observation and interview, the writer further studies onoutliers. Specifically, although these people indeed hinder the group work in a certainextent, we should not perceive them as ‘problems’ but understand them from ‘strengthperspective’. The writer finds that they actually play a positive role in activating groupatmosphere and enhancing the cohesion degree. In order to better help them, the writercarried out group and case work by means of social-work action research. During the social-work intervention, the project design put emphasis on special problems of outliers,constantly adjusting plans with the pace of gradual service in order to achieve best effects.Through research and rethink on the social-work intervention, the writer finds that theintervention strategies can be altered when confronting group outliers, in terms ofworking ideas, methods and skills which are based on a certain theory. Consequently, onthe one hand it can enable outliers develop their strengths and transform themselves, onthe other hand group work is expected to have positive effects as original design.