The Journey of a Social Work Student

The podcast episode discusses the experience of co-facilitating a mock group for couples dealing with one partner having terminal cancer. The hosts share their initial feelings of frustration and anxiety, but also their preparations for the group, including research on the topic. They discuss the activities they planned for the group and the importance of creating a positive and uplifting experience. They reflect on the strengths of the group and their co-facilitation, as well as the client behaviors and group dynamics they observed. They mention an ethical challenge of being too pushy with resources and briefly discuss a potential ethical challenge related to travel. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Journey of a Social Work Student podcast where we discuss the ins and outs of what it's like to be a CSW student in Texas in 2023. I'm Shayla and I'm here with Maria. How are you doing today Maria? Well as I was talking to you before I was not doing well because of my orthodontist appointment that didn't go accordingly. That's awful. But my day will get better I will make sure of that. Well I'm glad that you're here now. What about you? The rain this morning was slightly irritating. The thunder over in Baytown kept waking me up so it was like I had been slowly waking up since three o'clock in the morning thinking it was my alarm but it was just thunder. I bet I was thinking right now maybe you're glad that your kids are older because I had all three of mine in my bed with me when the thunder started. That's awful. Does my back hurt? Absolutely. That's terrible. Yeah I warned mine before they went to bed last night. I was like it will be thunder. Nothing bad is happening it's just thunder so please sleep. Yeah. Yeah definitely something to appreciate as they get older. Right. Not tearing the bed down. Is my back not hurting? Yes exactly because I know exactly what that looks like. It's not like everyone gets an equal portion of the bed. No. Yeah. I'm sorry. I hope your back feels better soon. Alright so on today's episode of our podcast we are going to be talking about our latest assignment and that is where we co-facilitated a mock group. Maria do you want to tell the listeners what type of group this was and how you felt initially when you found out what our group would be? Okay so we had the mock group of couples who have one partner with terminal with a terminal form of cancer. How I initially felt was frustration maybe some anger because I do not do well with these types of I guess dilemmas. I don't know how to I feel like I don't know how to comfort people when they're feeling so bad and you know that nothing that you do can make them feel better. If that makes sense. So I feel like you were imagining yourself being part of the group and so you were scared you were gonna get yourself in the group. Is that what I'm hearing? Probably. I was just I guess I was just freaking out because I like I didn't want somebody to start crying or you know like have really deep emotions or come with really deep emotions and I I feel like I still have trouble with dealing with conflict so and de-escalating a situation so that I think that was just where all my frustration and anger were coming from because I know and I can acknowledge that in myself that I'm still trying to figure how to deal with conflict and do all that so yeah I wasn't I wasn't too happy about the group. I could tell. What about you? I was intrigued because I really imagined us getting kids or something and so this level of difficulty was not something I had prepared for and my biggest issue was thinking what will our group bring like I didn't know how to prepare for it like you were saying if someone comes over emotional or angry because I could see myself being angry with a terminal diagnosis so it was not knowing what to expect therefore I don't know how to prepare for that so that that really had me thrown off. Yeah. So how did you prepare for this group? For me I for one of the critical thinking assignments I went ahead and just started researching about this topic and wrote my paper over that. I feel like that was the best way to prepare because I would be I guess what is it called killing two birds with one stone getting an assignment done. Eating two birds with one stone. Right. That's the better way to say it. But I was able to get a paper done and also have information for this mock group and I think it did help. Yeah I did the same thing. I think what's really neat is we talked about how both of us did our CTEs over this topic but you concentrated more on the partner whereas I concentrated more on the patient and so that I feel like gave us a really well-rounded. Yeah I balanced it out. So what about the what about the activities that we did what kind of research did you do for the activities? So I actually looked up well when I was trying to write the paper I went into like facilities if that makes sense and I saw that they did like the respite right? Respite is how you pronounce it. Part of the research. Yes and that they like had hospice you know and all that stuff so I feel like including that into our resource page that we had the handout that we had I think that helped. Yes I think so too and then for the activities we did we had previously assigned our group homework where they were supposed to go home and as a couple make a list of ten of their favorite life memories together and then for this group their homework was to go home and make a scrapbook kind of based off of those memories or any other good memories and so whenever I was doing my research I kept seeing that you wanted to encourage uplifting types of activities and so I actually was talking to my mother-in-law and I was like I'm so determined not to make this a depressing experience for everyone and so I said I want them to spend the last of their days thinking about the best of their days and she was like I love that I think that you should definitely make that like the theme of this group and so I feel like we really did that everyone seemed to be in good spirits and I loved that for this group. So what were you most nervous or excited about working with a new partner? With you? I think I was just excited that you I I feel like I see you as like really good in handling groups so I think I was excited to have you as a partner because I felt that if I got stuck you would like jump in and just take over and bring us. I felt the same way about you. You seemed so natural whenever you did your first practice group and so I was like I got a go-getter and so I'm excited. And that's that's what I was nervous about because I know that I go into it and I feel like because maybe I'm being too much of myself I'm not doing it right and maybe I need to bring more like professionalism into it. That can be hard but like I told you before we started I think you have to have some of yourself though. You need to have some of your own character because there are people that need to have more character when you go to talk to them and so I think I think the group really appreciated it. I think you did good. Thank you. So what were the strengths of our group? Of the group? I think of them as partners like I think that I think partners within the group what do you think? I think they had definitely worked towards trusting each other and they were feeling very comfortable with one another. Yes that's what I was going to say. I think that the group was close. Yes they definitely showed cohesion. Yes that's the word I was looking for. Yes for sure. Their hesitancy to terminate because of their cohesion. I mean they were all expressing themselves that they were not ready to leave. Yes exactly. And what about our co-facilitation? Did you see strengths there? Yes I think we both went beyond with a few in a few areas that you know we were talking about there. Yeah I think so too. I liked how everyone kept saying that we had these like signals for each other and we literally had no signals. Yeah I think that it just came natural whenever you said that. I was like huh? When did that happen? No but cool. I think that's a win. I'm not going to say that to you but yeah sure. I thought that was really neat. I thought Dr. Wilson's feedback about how we you talked with your body and I talked with my hand and that it kind of like leveled it all out. I liked that. So that's really neat. What's next here? Let's see. Client behavior. What client behavior did you recognize during the group progress? Oh process. Group dynamic or culture? So I noticed that couple three seemed really hesitant to participate and they were just very distant from the group until we would like acknowledge them and try to pull them in. And it's good that you did that because I feel like I was because I don't like to push people and make them do something they don't want to do. I feel like I was neglecting them a little and paying more attention to the ones that were interacting. So I think it was good that you you would like bring them into back into the group. And I was worried that I was being too pushy and that they were gonna be like we're here because we want to be here and we don't have to participate. But turns out they had been having health issues and we're just tired. So I liked that they eventually started participating more but I did notice that in the beginning. And just a lot of fatigue I noticed in the group. But I mean that's to be expected with this type of group. I think with people with terminal illness and their caretakers they're going to express that. And then the dynamics I feel like that is kind of what bonded them. And they started talking about having those things in common. And so I feel like that really helped them to be able to carry a conversation without us really being a part of it. So I feel like that helped. Were there any ethical challenges or dilemmas during our group? Yes our main one being too pushy about the resources. The co-facilitator being too pushy. What did you say? Are you sure? Yes that's what. Yes me using language. They I felt I knew we were starting to be like push this resource like go go go. Because I wrote it down. I literally wrote pushing pushing groups. Pushing others. Yeah I realized that and I didn't know how to stop us from doing it. I didn't either. And then I just was so thrown by the fact that the printouts they were supposed to have a teal background and the font was white. And they got printed on white paper. And so as I was handing the printouts out to everyone and talking about on this page you'll see here. And then I was like oh no you won't see anything. There's nothing on those papers. I'm so sorry. The words mixed in with the background. And so I was so thrown off by that that the resource portion of our entire group was just a big blur to me. And then I noticed that we had just been saying resources over and over. And I'm telling you I noticed it and I didn't know how to move away from it. Until I think a couple three said if we don't want to go we don't want to go. And I was like yes yes. Let's forget about that. And I was like for sure. And moving on to the next portion of our group. Ethical challenges? I don't know. I don't think any. Everyone kind of expressed that as a couple they like to go do this or my support system looks like this. And maybe it's because of the discussions that we had. But there were no to my knowledge there was nothing that came up. No ethical challenges that day. The only thing I can think of but not I don't know that it would be an ethical challenge was just when couple two mentioned about them traveling and then I got concerned because I said are you in good conditions to travel? Like have they cleared you for this? And I think you know the just being supportive but also bringing that sense of I guess hey you need to check yourself and make sure that you can go. I don't know if you could count that as an ethical challenge. I don't think it would be. Are you saying that you might have been like going against the strengths perspective a little bit there? Like challenging like going against their decision to their right to make their own decisions? I don't think so because it is still in a type of medical like setting because their hospital did refer them to us. And so it is part of it that you make sure that their medical team is on board. Right. That's why I said I don't know that it would be. I don't think so. I think you were just checking in on them. Okay. All right. So on that note, which theories?