Correctional Group Leading in \"Common

¶ … Correctional Group Leading

In "Common mistakes in correctional group leading," Jacobs and Spadaro discuss some of the challenges in leading a group in the correctional facility setting and how to avoid the common mistakes one finds in those settings. The purpose of this chapter is to help the practitioner avoid some of the mistakes that frequently occur when leading the correctional group leading. The article is a chapter from a book, not an article describing research; therefore there are no real research findings, methodology, or results for a specific hypothesis. However, the article does discuss the pitfalls that are common in leading a group in a correctional setting. The nine common pitfalls are: allowing inexperienced or unskilled leaders to lead groups; not planning; not making the group meaningful; being intimidated; not interrupting members; spotlighting members when trying to draw them out; responding to every comment; not having a theory; and not involving other members when working with one member (Jacobs & Spadaro, 2003).

This article is helpful for the interviewing process because groups are essentially interviews with a number of different people. However, the fact that there are multiple people in a group complicates the process of giving and sharing of information. The group leader may lead the group, but never completely controls a group because other group members may introduce information to the group setting that is outside of the parameters of what the leader would like introduced to the group. One of the big mistakes that the authors discuss is that some group leaders simply allow the group members to fill up time talking about irrelevant things. What this means is that group leaders have to be able to guide the group discussion process, but not dominate the discussion; learning how to guide without dominating is a critical component for group leaders.