You may have included a group of people you work with, the whole student group for your course, or a sub-group; this may be friends whom you choose to associate with, but may also be a group designated by your course leader where you have no choice of membership. You probably have membership of some social groups too: you may be part of a family group, a member of a club or society. The size of a group can be very variable, from just three or four people to hundreds, or, in the case of a social network site, thousands of people may be collectively in touch with each other.

Your role within the group will also vary. In some, you may be the leader; in others, you may be an employee, connected by family or personal interests, or a volunteer. Some groups may have a defined purpose – to complete a work task or a piece of course work for assessment; others may be more open and less defined. In this chapter, we are interested in group reflection, so smaller groups where people are able to have a collective discussion are the focus.

SEARCH AND EXPLORE

There is a huge amount of online information about groups. Try searching for ‘group dynamics’ to explore what ‘sort’ of group member you may be, and what an ideal group may consist of. But do not get sidetracked by this; we are more interested in group reflection, and how this can enhance your practice.

Why reflect in a group?

If all of these people come together in a group reflection, their perceptions of the day and emotional responses will be very different. Group reflection on practice will contain similar differences of perception in which your beliefs and personal preferences will be challenged.

In earlier chapters, we have concentrated mostly on you as an individual. But in your practice as a student and your working life, you will usually be part of a professional group where people have different levels of qualification and responsibility. When you meet together to discuss your cases, professional differences and complex hierarchies will be involved. Reflecting on your own allows you to hold on to a particular opinion without being challenged. In a group, you have to accept somebody may disagree with you: by keeping an open mind, you may understand something differently and change your opinion. This openness is what all good practitioners aspire to.

Although few professionals work in complete isolation, most models of reflection are written as if they apply to an individual. It is also the case that a lot of reflective learning is taught in uniprofessional groups where ‘professional boundaries and traditional delineated roles may be reinforced rather than reduced’ (Karban & Smith, 2010, p. 176). Although reflecting on positive and negative situations is of equal importance, they argue that critical reflection in an inter-professional situation, which requires the exploration of wider social and political issues, will lead to professional decisions and professional differences being highlighted and challenged.

One of the reasons we are writing this book without a particular profession in mind is to encourage you to reflect personally and within groups, rather than just seeing issues from your own perspective. We have said that reflection has the capacity to embed good practice; record thinking processes; develop skills; improve practice; and, crucially, to move difficult situations forward. Group reflection can achieve all of these outcomes but can be destructive and unhelpful if it is not well managed.

There are several things that are special about this space. You remain ‘I’, but you are also one of ‘us’. You have a professional identity but also a team identity where the team members may all be of the same profession, but might all be different. Your personal and specialist views are just as important as when you reflect alone, but will need to be mediated through the group interaction. You will also have personal feelings and preferences about reflection.

TIME FOR REFLECTION

Focus on an issue that you have been thinking about and look at the three rings of the diagram in figure 5.1. In which area would you feel most comfortable reflecting on this issue? Is the central group reflection the least or most acceptable to you? Why?

We all have different identities; the phrase ‘Identity negotiation’ (Swann, Johnson & Bosson, 2009, p. 82) describes a process that: ‘transform[s] disconnected individuals into collaborators who have mutual obligations, common goals, and often, some degree of commitment to one another’. Negotiating who you are – your identity as an individual, professional and colleague within a group reflection – is an important part of your personal commitment to that group.

We have identified eight elements of a group that we believe will be significant in ensuring successful outcomes where the focus is reflection:

Getting together

People

Talking and listening

Being non-judgemental

Being ‘in the room’

Opening

Contributing

Outcomes

When you meet as a group, the first decision is where and when. This brings a structure to the meeting. The spontaneity you have when reflecting alone is lost. Arranging something at a time when everyone is available often leads to a least-worst scenario.

Where you meet is also a key factor. All space has connotations. We are most comfortable in our own space with our own things around us, but often you will be meeting in a space that you wouldn’t choose, or somebody else’s office. You may resent the time you spend going to an out-of-the-way place which has obviously been chosen for someone else’s convenience. You may be used to reflecting in comfort but have instead to sit on children’s chairs. You might like to move around when reflecting but now you are constrained.

There is also a time pressure. Very often, group reflection takes place at the end of the day. People are tired, worrying about getting home and already trying to plan the next day. You are not sure what is going to happen in the meeting, you may not even know exactly who is going to be there.

A further factor will be the reason for getting together. This may be a positive joint decision by a group of colleagues to reflect on their practice, or a management requirement where individuals feel they do not have a choice about joining in. Worse still, they may feel their ‘performance’ in the group is being assessed and judged by others. Where reflecting in groups is a ‘requirement’, spontaneity and willingness to engage may be lost (Platzer, Blake & Ashford, 2000).

EXERCISE

‘Why?’, ‘What?’, ‘Where?’, ‘When?’ and ‘Who?’ are not bad starting places…