Group Work with Youth: Substance Abuse and Peer Support

This document discusses the significance of peer support in addressing substance abuse among youth and the role of family support. It explores strategies for facilitating groups with youth and promoting inclusivity. The document also addresses considerations for social identity issues and the incorporation of social justice and equity in group work.

Group work with a particular population of youth

Part 1
Youth accounts for around one fifth of the world’s population. Youth are a part of adolescent
which means ‘to emerge’ or ‘achieve identity. ‘They are in a specific phase of life that
determines rapid physical growth as well as development in all aspects of reasons. Youth can
also be characterized by social and psychological changes as well as maturity, sexual
maturity, physical needs, experimentation, development of mental processes along with
moving on from the early socio-economic dependence towards more relative independence in
life (Van Ryzin et al., 2016).
One of the biggest issue that today’s youth are suffering from is substance abuse problem. It
could be said that the youthful substance use can be transitory, episodic or even experimental.
However, for certain group of youth it is also quite a serious and long‐lasting indicator for
upcoming problems. Number of research experiments has been conducted on animals in
order to address the sensitivity of youth’s mind to the alcohol or drugs. Most of the youth
start using substance abuse during their teen years (Dunne et al., 2017). The use of substance
in such early phase of life is associated with disruptive behaviours like oppositional disorders,
attention deficit disorder or ADD, conduct disorders, eating disorders and attention
deficit/hyperactivity disorder, popularly known as AD/HD (Papp et al., 2016). The most
common substance used and abused by the youth is alcohol. The use of alcohol is also
reflected on the troubling patterns among the youth. As per the reports, in the year 2001,
around 10.7 per cent of youth among the age group of 12 to 17 was reported to binge
consume alcohol in one month and around 2.5 per cent of youth was reported of heavy
drinking. Binge drinking is mainly consuming five or more drinks on the same occasion
while heavy drinking is consuming more than five drinks for at least five days in a week
(Hutton, 2016).
While dealing with substance abuse among youth, peer support is one of the most beneficial
group works for this issue (Carpenter et al., 2017).. It is a process of giving and receiving
nonprofessional or nonclinical assistance from various individuals that are suffering from
same conditions and circumstances. The peer group in case of substance abuse can be from
psychiatric, alcohol or other drug related problems (MacArthur et al., 2016). As per some
recent research studies, it has been subjected that there are some rise in the implementation of
alternative forms of peer support services in order to assist people in the recovery of
substance use disorders. However, often at times using peer support is not accepted as a valid

and formalizedcomponent of service. It is not separated as an empirically tested service in
helping insubstance use disorders, which makes it difficult for the researchers to fully
determine its effects. One of the biggest benefits and aspects of the peer supportservices in
case of substance abuse recovery is treatment of addiction.
The supports of the family for the group of youth that are suffering from problems related to
the substance use are equally important as the peer support group. This is also mainly because
the family of the abuser would be able to motivate the individual to strive for the goalto free
him from the bondage of alcohol or drugs. Constant motivation and encouragement are also a
major factor for the individual to leave the substance abuse. In many case the peer support
groups do not have to replace the requirements for any kind of formal treatments and
supervisory clinical guidance (Cieslik& Pollock, 2017). This is because the peer of the group
services does not have sufficient training in order to manage some sort of psychiatric
conditions and other high risk situations like these. The peer group support services still offer
a legible growth and development to the substance abuse treatment and provide appropriate
benefits to the individuals that are suffering from substance use disorders for a long time.
Another basic way to treat the youth suffering from alcohol abuse is application to family
therapy. Many treatment programmes have now started including family therapy support in
order to engage and retain the youths and to better their problems related to drug use. Few
other approaches which can be taken into consideration are Specific family therapy
approaches which include Brief Strategic Family Therapy and Multidimensional Family
Therapy (Ng& Weisz, 2016). Another strong strategy to help the individual youth to fight
their battle of substance abuse are moving the session for the therapy from clinic to a setting
in which they are more accustomed and comfortable. If the therapy sessions are conducted at
a familiar place for the youth, he is more likely to open their thoughts and share their issues
than the sessions which are conducted in the therapist’s office. The therapy sessions should
also be sensitive towards the school obligations along with extracurricular and social
activities taking place around the youth (Degenhardt et al., 2016).

Part 2
1. What are some of the considerations that need to be made for facilitating groups with
this specific group of people?
In order to facilitate groups successfully it is important to have proper knowledge of man
management. Especially when it comes to managing youths the target population for the
study it is essential to be able to communicate with them in the best possible manner. The
very first consideration that needs to be made in this case is to be able to provide space to the
youths to speak. It is important to develop a strong environment where each and every youth
could thrive and gain inspiration from. Better communication would help the youths to
become more open about their experiences and gain better knowledge as to how to handle
themselves in situations where they failed earlier. Apart from that it is also important to
ensure that each and every member is committed to the group. As a group facilitator it is
extremely important to take commitment into consideration as this would be effective to
strengthen the confidence of the group and also strengthen the bond where each and every
member is willing to save each other’s back and contribute to the overall growth and
development of the group (Tyler & Bladerm 2013). Development of mutual bonding and
empowerment should be another key focus of the facilitator as it would help to guide the
group members effectively and motivate them to put their best effort for the group. It is
important to provide the group members ample time which would help them to mingle with
each other and learn from one another which is a great way of learning thing staying in the
group itself. Having mutual aid supports collective action and enhances knowledge of the
group members leading to efficient facilitation of the group. Finally it is important to have
group cohesion. A cohesive group could achieve all the objectives and hence being able to
strengthen the bond increase internal competition at the same time improving communication
helps to encourage the youths which largely helps to facilitate group work (Banks, 2014).

2. What important social identity issues need to be considered? How will you ensure the
group experience is inclusive and accessible for all?
Social identity is an extremely crucial aspect. Social identity is always prioritised in the
society and hence the issues of racism and sexual orientations are questioned. Hence, it is
important that the social identity issues are directly and effectively addressed in order to
make sure each and every socially diverse member feel welcome in the group. Religion, race
and sexual orientation issues have to be eliminated from the group which can creep into the
team and affect the overall bonding of the group. Especially in a group full of youths it is
important to instil the idea of a completely barrier free group and social barriers are major
barriers that create rift between people. It is extremely important to make sure there’s no
issue regarding racism and people irrespective of their caste and race could contribute to the
overall development of the team through their work. Sexual orientation is one of the most
important subjects of study in sociology. The group members need to imbibe all the negatives
regarding social identity so that effective communication is established (Turner, 2014).
It is important to make sure the group experience is inclusive and accessible to all the team
members. In order to do that it is important to establish unique communication procedure.
Effective interactive communication sessions have to be organised where each and every
person would be allowed time to communicate about their problems and the others would
comment and share their experiences. Fun and interactive sessions allow team strength and
personal bonding which largely helps to get the group experience distributed effectively
among people (Patel, Budhawar, Verma, 2012).
3. How will your group content or facilitations ensure they will not further exclude
socially marginalized identity groups? How will your commitment to social justice and
equity be incorporated into your work?
As a socially neutral person I will try my level best to develop content that touches each and
every team member irrespective of their social identity. Being a facilitator I will always
provide visionary members opportunity to speak in the meetings and provide their ideas to
enhance the learning possibilities while working together. Apart from that make socially
marginalised people responsible for the groups and ensure each and every member
communicates with the help these members regularly to create a mutual understanding. As a
socially neutral person I will emphasise on the commitment, communication, passion and

merit of the members in the team so that the decisions I make is completely free of prejudice
and transparent with reference to social justice (Asch, 2017).

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