ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the way a social group worker influences the content of a group by describing the planning for a group meeting. The group to be described is a treatment group of five midlatency boys which has met at the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Center for a year. The first step in planning a meeting is to identify the group roles of each child: his basic continuing role and the specific role that may be anticipated for him at the given meeting. Placing children in situations demanding high levels of conformity, illustrated by the trip to the museum, has special usefulness. For the worker it offers three diagnostic opportunities: first, it shows how well gains made within the protection of the clinic stand up outside and allows more adequate future protective structuring; second, it reveals new problem areas in social behavior which may only become evident as other problems are mastered; third, it brings unexpressed concerns into the open.
