Team Work Before Group Work
| Date | 01 March 1975 |
| Author | Geoffrey Dobson |
| Published date | 01 March 1975 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455057502200107 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Team Work Before Group Work
GEOFFREY DOBSON
Inner London
WITH FEW exceptions, probation officers must learn to work with their
colleagues in groups before they can hope to do so with their clients.
This is the contention of this paper. Further, it suggests that the long-
cherished autonomy of officers has been the main obstacle to the expected
’
growth of group work in the Service. For this reason, the proliferation
of group work training courses has had little effect.
These arguments derive from my experience in the London Unit of
the IMPACT experiment. While casework has still proved to be the
main focus of the work, a variety of groups have operated in addition
to conjoint marital and family work. From the outset of this experi-
ment, the officers involved have placed a strong emphasis on the impor-
tance of working closely as a team. This means that we share responsi-
bility for the whole project, the initiation of ideas and the discussion
of all referrals to the Unit. We hold three team meetings a week of
one and a half hours each, at which cases are allocated and frequently
discussed. In this way, all members of the team are involved in each
case and its treatment, and far more clients are also known personally
to the team than is normal in the traditional office. An extension of
this added involvement is our system of &dquo;paired working&dquo; whereby each
case is initially allocated to two officer, one male and one female. Our
caseloads are limited to a maximum of 20 &dquo;active&dquo; cases each. While
this may allow an added degree of thoroughness, I would maintain that
the essential characteristics of such a team approach could be developed
profitably in the traditional office setting. The advantages which team
work could afford in a unit attempting to provide a wider range of
treatment methods can be seen in the following description of the
groups which have operated in our Unit.
I shall begin by describing a group which &dquo;failed&dquo; but from which we
learnt a number of valuable lessons. At the beginning of the experi-
ment, we occupied premises outside our catchment area. Four officers
decided to use the &dquo;Pentonville ovives and Families Centre&dquo; for their
reporting evenings. The Centre provided relaxed surroundings which
led to the development of an informal group among clients over sub-
sequent weeks. Many of these clients were in their late 20’s, with simi-
lar problems of marital difficulties, heavy drinking and occasional periods
of imprisonment. It was decided by the office. team to try to formalise
this group so as to obtain maximum benefit from it. We then decided
that the group should have two leaders. There was a great deal of
competition between the four officers for these positions. Associated
with this competition was a good deal of reluctance amongst officers to
give up their clients. This reluctance was not openly admitted at the
time. As soon as the
.
group was formalised attendance at the Centre
dropped dramatically. Many clients mistakenly expected their officer
to lead the
,
group, while others resented the imposition of a new struc-
,
ture on them. Poor communication...
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