Group Development - Youth Workin' It

Tuckman’s Group Development Model

September 12, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

It’s the start of the new school year, which often means changes in the make-up of youth groups. We therefore thought that this week’s Best Of Youth Workin’ It post should focus on Tuckman’s group development model, as it can help you and your youth work through these changes in your group.

1. Forming Stage Of Group Development – The first stage in Tuckman’s group development model is the Forming stage. This post explains what you can expect to happen – particularly in terms of youth behavior – and how to assist your young people in getting through this awkward time.

2. Storming Stage Of Group Development – The second part is the Storming stage – this is where young people will seek to poke the bear by testing boundaries. This can therefore be a critical stage in terms of your young people learning about your expectations of the group.

3. Norming Stage Of Group Development – The third stage is Norming, where your young people start becoming more comfortable with you and the other youth, thereby becoming more comfortable in the group as a whole. This can lead to its own challenges though (such as complacency), so this post looks at these areas and how to help the group continue to grow.

4. Performing Stage Of Group Development – The fourth stage of Tuckman’s group development model relates to Performing. As the name suggests, this is generally the most productive stage – youth have gelled, they’ve gained confidence in themselves and each other and are enjoying what they’re doing. This post explores this further, what else you can expect and how to prepare the youth for the final stage.

5. Adjourning Stage Of Group Development – The fifth and final stage is Adjourning. This is also known as mourning, as it relates to what happens when the group ends. At the start of the school year, you may find your groups in a mix of both forming and adjourning, so this post is worth reading to identify ways that you can help your young people (and yourself) through these changes.

Questions: What stage of Tuckman’s group development model are you in at the moment? What tips do you have for other youth workers on how to move through the stages?

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How To Use Toilet Paper As An Icebreaker

September 4, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Toilet paper icebreaker — Use this toilet paper icebreaker to get your youth group on a roll

Q: Due to the start of the school year, a lot of new young people have moved up into the youth group I lead. Do you have any good icebreakers I can use to help them get to know each other better?

A: The start of a new school year can be tough for youth groups as it can often mean that they go from the adjourning stage of group development to the forming stage.

Effective icebreakers can therefore be a great way to help the group form. One fun option is to use the toilet paper icebreaker – here’s how it works:

Resources

1 roll of toilet paper. If you have a very large group of young people, it may be worth splitting into smaller groups and giving each small group a roll each.

How to play the Toilet Paper Icebreaker

Have the group sit in a circle. One-by-one, pass around the roll of toilet paper and have each person take as much paper as they would normally use when using the restroom – this includes leaders!

When everyone has taken their share of toilet paper, advise them that for every square of paper they took, they have to tell the group something about themselves. i.e. If they took 8 pieces of paper, they would have to tell the group 8 things about themselves.

They can share anything they like, such as:

Favorite sport
Favorite band
How many brothers & sisters they have
Where they live
Other interests
Favorite food
Funniest thing that’s happened to them
Anyone famous they’ve met
What they want for Christmas
What pets they have
A country they’d love to travel to

They don’t have to go super-deep where they’re revealing their deepest and dark secrets, like the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to them; just whatever they’re comfortable with. Remember – at the forming stage, they still need to build up trust with each other.

Finding common ground

The Toilet Paper Icebreaker is also a great way to help emphasize similarities and common interests between the young people. After each person has shared about themselves, pick out one or two facts about them and see if anyone else in the group has similar interests or experiences. For example:

Bobby’s favorite sport is football – is that anyone else’s favorite sport?
Jenny loves Chinese food – who else loves to eat Chinese?
Andy has a dog – does anyone else own a dog?

Try to pick out the things that it’s likely other people will have similar interests in, rather than some of the more vague facts you’re likely to hear. This will help show the young people that despite differences between them, there are still common areas that they can agree on, helping set the group off on the right foot.

Check out our previous post on team building activities for further ideas on helping your youth group to gel, along with our other toilet paper games.

Question: What other interests/topics would you suggest young people share about when playing the Toilet Paper Icebreaker? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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Good Team Building Activities For Teenagers

May 22, 2012 By Shae Pepper Leave a Comment

Q: I’m working with a new group of youth – what are some good team building activities for teenagers?

A: Often, at the start of a new group or after major changes (graduation, new youth worker coming in or a significant rift/trauma within the group, etc), it can be beneficial to spend significant time, energy and resources doing team building activities before moving on to or back to ‘regularly scheduled programming.’

There are three ways you can build team cohesion and help develop your youth group further. Some require little or no money and very little time; some require a bit more time and money while others require a significant contribution of time and money.

Option 1 – Limited Time and Resources

You can just add some team building games into your regular programming. Take a few minutes at the start of every session to play a game and take the time to reflect together.

Most of the following games require little or no preparation and utilize items that are readily available in most organizations or at your home:

Take it a step further

You can combine a few activities and icebreakers to create an entire session of team building activities that work well with teenagers and can dovetail into your regular programming.

Option 2 – Some Time and Resources

Through fundraising, or having the youth contribute small amounts of money, you could plan an overnight lock-in focused on team building and group bonding. Watch films, play games, do team building activities and create memories.

Take it a step further

Hold a team building youth retreat that takes place over an entire 2-3 day weekend. Organize team building activities, do all the fun activities you could provide at a lock-in and include small group sessions that allow teens to explore social and emotional issues – this will allow them to get to know one another better. You may even want to include a community service project to help the students create camaraderie while helping others.

Option 3 – More Time and Resources

Go on a residential or week long overnight team building camp. You can go to activity centers where you choose and lead your own activities or there are others that have programs led by the center staff based on the types of skills you’re working to build. These can be pricey and require more time, so consider fundraising efforts, grants and scholarships.

Take it a step further

With the help of fundraising and/or youth contributions, take your teenagers on a week-long mission trip or service project overseas. This will take some time, but the planning stages also help with team building.

Activities that you do there can help youth learn more about themselves, about other cultures and about each other. They may also learn a new skill in the process!

Other Ideas

For even more great activities, check out our other site for some great team building scavenger hunt ideas.

Question: What team building activities for teenagers do you use? Give your thoughts in the comments below.

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What Is A Group Agreement?

May 1, 2012 By Shae Pepper Leave a Comment

Youth group agreement — Creating a group agreement means everyone is setting expectations together

Q: What is a group agreement?

A: A group agreement (sometimes also called a youth group contract) is a document that outlines what the expectations of the group are for the time they are meeting together.

You might be thinking to yourself, “Wait, isn’t a group agreement just ‘the rules’? I already have those, so check you later Youth Workin’ It.”

Some might consider a group agreement, ‘the rules.’ The key difference between a group agreement and ‘rules’ comes in the creation and enforcement.

Rules are often top down. They’re usually created and enforced by the person in charge. A group agreement though is created by the entire group. They decide what goes on and discuss why it’s important for the group.

Creating a Group Agreement

Creating a youth group agreement takes time and discussion. It needs ownership and participation from all the youth to work well. You’re a part of the group as well and can therefore make sure that any zero-tolerance items end up on the list. But again, do so conversationally. For example, with a no alcohol ‘rule’, explore why it’s important to the youth that everyone comes sober.

When creating a group agreement try to keep items positive. Instead of a list of ‘NOs’, try to create a list of positive activities that everyone agrees to. From our previous example, instead of ‘No alcohol’, try ‘Come to group sober’. Instead of ‘No put-downs’, try ‘Speak kindly’. The youth will probably give you a list of ‘NOs’ – take the time to help them create a list of ‘YESs’.

Once a group agreement is created have everyone sign it. Yourself included. When new group members join have them review and sign the agreement too.

Enforcing a Group Agreement

Enforcing a youth group agreement is just as important as creating one. Don’t always be the one to enforce the expectations set by the group. It’s the group’s agreement, not your rules. Everyone is encouraged to give positive peer pressure to adhere to the group agreement they created together. If you have a youth team leader on a project within your program, encourage them to also take the lead in helping remind the group about the group agreement.

Refer to it often, even when no one is breaking it. Praise the group when they are following the agreement. It’s often easy to only notice when a youth is breaking a part of the group agreement, but take the time to praise individuals and the group when they’re working well and following the group agreement.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how group agreements help manage youth behavior. On Thursday, we’ll provide a youth work session plan for creating a group agreement, so check back!

Question: Do you think a group agreement is different from ‘rules’? Why or why not? Share your answers in the comments below.

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The Adjourning Stage of Group Development

April 4, 2012 By Shae Pepper Leave a Comment

Over the past five weeks, we’ve been exploring the stages of group development as identified by Tuckman and Jensen (1977). The fifth and final stage of group development – the adjourning stage (also known as the mourning stage) – is really more of an after-thought rather than an actual stage.

As discussed by Mark Smith of Infed.org, the initial stages of group development were identified as part of a functioning group, whereas the adjourning stage is really the end of a group.

A few things need to end during the adjourning stage of group development:

1) Tasks – Tie up all the loose ends for the project. Also, do any necessary monitoring and evaluation with the youth about the project and make sure that if they need to do any evaluation as part of their own project, they do that as well.

2) Group Roles – Spend time reflecting on what each youth enjoyed about their role and participation in the project. Help them identify areas where they could have developed their role further within the team or scaled back to allow others to participate more.

3) Group Dependency – While tying up tasks, completing evaluations and identifying areas for development, allow the group to do as many of these tasks as independently as possible. Allow them to form their own opinions about their learning and to feel a sense of personal accomplishment at the end – not just a feeling of achievement by being a part of the team.

Sometimes it’s not possible to end in the way you’d like if your project ends suddenly. Do the best you can in providing a final session for the youth to say their goodbyes and have some reflection time – this will help provide closure.

The worst-case scenario is that you will be unable to have a final session for any reason with your youth. If you have a forced and abrupt adjourning stage like this, write each youth a personal letter (if appropriate), providing the goodbye and closure that they may need.

If you are unable to contact the youth for any reason, encourage your manager or colleagues to hold a final session with the youth and help them reflect on their learning and have closure, even if you are unable to participate.

Because at the end of the day it’s about the youth, their group, their closure and their sense of well-being that’s important – that’s what the adjourning stage of group development is meant to achieve.

Check out our post about Tuckman’s Group Development Model for details of all five stages.

Questions: Did you learn anything new about yourself or your group during this series on group development? Would you like to see more posts like this? If so, what topics would you like explored regarding program administration? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

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