Mutual Aid Groups, Vulnerable Populations, and the Life Cycle

Using the life cycle as a framework, this revised edition inquires into the healing and empowering process of mutual aid groups. It sets a theoretical model for practice, and shows how social workers as group leaders can foster the process of mutual aid, in which group members help one another. The text includes many revised and updated chapters on: fundamentals of the mutual aid process; descriptions and suggestions for overcoming obstacles in mutual aid groups; Group service and its institutional benefits; and specific clinical examples of groups for children, adults, and the elderly. The new chapters on HIV-positive and AIDS patients, the homeless, and perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse and family violence, expand our current understanding of contemporary issues.