The purpose of the group is for clients to identify what personal behaviors and stressors contribute to upheaval in the family and can create an environment that facilitates neglect. It is also to help develop insight into how stress and other external factors can affect group member's mentality. Also, the aim of the group includes to help members identify ways to manage stress in their everyday lives and reduce the potential for neglect and create a loving and embracing environment. This group r

Hesitant participation is more often evident in the early stages of a single session group, where members attempt to identify meaning and purpose of the group and establish dependency (Yalom, 1995). Later stages may be marked by varying issues that may include rebellion, dominance and conflict, whereas the latter stages of the group are often highlighted by group cohesiveness (Whitaker, 2000). A mature group is characterized by cohesiveness, mutual trust and "self-disclosure" (Whitaker, 2000: 140).

During each of these phases varying problems may arise or issues. What goes on during each stage is influenced in part by the patient's perceptions of how much time is left in the session (Whitaker, 2000). The "foci" of the group early in intervention will include issues of safety, where the role of the therapist should center on seeking "support" and helping develop "cohesion" as well as clarify group themes (Whitaker, 2000: 138). At this stage the group feels termination is far away hence members are comfortable and safe.

At this point in time it seemed evident that members were not concerned with time but rather with sharing their experiences regarding single parenting and the particular challenges and obstacles they faced when addressing problematic behavior with their children. At this point I felt it important for each member to identify the cause of the problem and to outline in their minds their goals or objectives for this session. This intervention is meant to keep the group focused and on track for the remainder of the session.

In this particular group meeting I described the topic of the group which was to analyze how single parents could cope with difficult situations at home after a long day's work without the support of other family members. On this occasion Maryanne began conversation describing her anger and frustration at having to work a 40 hour week and overtime several days only to find out her son may be expelled from school due to inappropriate behavior. Mark jumped in saying he lost his temper on returning home to find out his son had engaged in a fight at school and had thrown a chair to express his frustration.

The agency setting is a child protective type agency, child protective services. In this case a single session setting presents many unique challenges to the group dynamic discussed in the following paragraphs.

The group concluded with each member identifying one or more reasons their children may be acting out and identifying one strategy they could adopt to remain calm in light of an unexpected difficulty their children might experience at school. I thanked each member for coming and encouraged each member to draw up a plan of action to act on when they returned home. This included talking with their children ahead of time regarding a plan for dealing with adversity in school and providing their children with an alternate contact when their parent wasn't available for confrontation.

Socio-economic problems can result in greater stress in the home environment, hence contributing to child abuse or neglect in many situations. It is important to understand what stressors each member of the group faces with regard to work and financial background. The group work approach will depend in part on the stressors faced by each of these members in this regard. In this setting group members are faced with the challenges of not only coping with work stressors and their socio-economic status but also raising their children by themselves. Single parenting presents many challenges and obstacles even without the presence of a neglect or abuse situation.

At this point I asked other members of the group to share their similar concerns to redirect the focus toward resolution of the groups issue. By this time each member of the group agreed that we must develop a single strategy or objective for coping with this type of behavior in the future. At this point we all brainstormed with e

Some common words found in the essay are:
Issue Brought, Budman Gurman, Rosenberg Zimet, , Conclusions Child, Single Session, Practiced Single, Eng Beck, Relationships Mackenzie, Agency Setting, single session, whitaker 2000, role therapist, et al, single session limited, limited therapy, neglect abuse, session limited, budman et, al 1996, budman et al, et al 1996, child neglect abuse, resolving issues, rosenberg zimet 1995,
Approximate Word count = 3079
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)