Book Club Advice from the Social Work SIG
Notes from the 2018 Social Work SIG book club
- For our book club, we put out an announcement on the Social Work Sig list serve and approximately 20 people signed up. There was rapid churn and that number decreased very quickly. However, after a few meetings we held steady at approximately five regular attendees. This was good and we became quite close.
- I think zoom is probably the best platform. However, someone needs to have a paid access to Zoom, otherwise you time out after 45 minutes. So we used Google Hangouts. A few people struggled with knowing how to access the Hangout, and I was of very little help with that.
- Book club attendees seemed to be very interested in discussing clinical questions. As a result, Kelly Wilson’s Mindfulness for Two generated a lot of great conversations.
- Not everyone in attendance was always able to read the full assigned chapter, but that didn’t seem to diminish the quality of our conversations.
- I tried asking some “study questions.“ I didn’t think that went very well as I expected.
- It’s no surprise that good planning and execution is helpful. Although I strongly prefer self-organizing groups where members think of themselves as co-owners of the group rather than customers of the group. I don’t mind a bit of messiness as we find our way. But others may feel differently.
- It’s worth putting thought into who the intended audience is. It’s natural for the experienced members to play a teaching role, but that can unintentionally keep the discussion at an intro level. Conversely, new comers may not hang around if the focus is too advanced.
- Find others willing to chip in and help do whatever needs doing. It makes the work more meaningful and more fun!
Notes from the 2019 Social Work SIG book club
We are doing a new format this year. The Social Work SIG has an RFT group going on right now. People read Learning RFT, then upload comments and notes to a Google Drive each week. Then everyone meets after about a month of doing this. It keeps them accountable, but they don't have to meet regularly.