The New Social Worker Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall 2013 | Page 35
Reviews
Facilitative Leadership in Social Work Practice
by Elizabeth M. Breshears and Roger Dean
Volker. Springer Publishing Company, New
York, 2013, 208 pages, $55.00 softcover.
Somebody at Springer owes Breshears and Volker an apology for the
mundane title of this wonderful little book.
Eleven short chapters are accessible to
undergraduate students and packed full
of concise summaries of complex topics.
The authors give the reader everything
essential to revolutionizing the bane of employed existence—the meeting. Sprinkled
with stories from their personal experience
and appended with 18 specific techniques
for use in revitalizing meetings, public
forums, work teams, and task groups, this
book belongs in the personal library of
every social worker. A few exercises close
every chapter for classroom use.
The authors claim that facilitative
leadership is “a fundamental skill for social
workers” (p. xii). Like a group facilitator,
a facilitative leader promotes inclusion
and avoids the exercise of power over the
group; but unlike a group facilitator, the
facilitative leader is not necessarily neutral.
This results in a potential conflict in
which the facilitative leader is constantly
balancing attention to the ongoing group
processes with the need for group productivity, attention to content, and accountability to external authorities. The authors
suggest that attendees practicing facilitative
leadership will enhance any meeting, and
I agree.
One of the most interesting aspects
of Breshears and Volker’s view of facilitative leadership is that it can be practiced
in any meeting by anyone in attendance.
The skills, techniques, and perspectives
conjoined in the facilitative leader do
not require position or title. Accordingly,
the practice of facilitative leadership is
thoroughly compatible with the ethics and
values of the profession, the pragmatic
realities associated with the modest status
associated with social workers in a variety
of practice contexts, and the profession’s
commitment to improving life opportunities for our clients despite our limited
access to resources. Breshears and Volker
never use hyperbole to this extent, but after reading this book it is hard to imagine
social work practice without facilitative
leadership.
A few chapters warrant specific
acclaim because of the breadth of their
content and brevity of their expression.
Leadership Theories (Chapter 3) is one of the
more heavily cited chapters. It provides a
wealth of information about the historical
trends and different perspectives regarding leadership. Building on these theories,
Leadership Ethics for Social Workers (Chapter
4) not only relates leadership approaches
to social work ethics, but also engages with
the literature on power, oppression, and
empowerment. Frankly, I have not read
anything comparable to the clarity and
conciseness of this chapter. Theoretical
foundations continue in How Groups Work
(Chapter 5) where the authors summarize
group formation, group effectiveness,
and the avoidance of groupthink. The
book ends with six “how to” chapters to
stimulate reflection and practice related
to leadership, group organization, process
observation, process intervention, evaluation of facilitative leadership, and recommendations from the authors’ experiences.
I believe social work students and social workers lucky enough to stumble onto
a copy of this book will hang onto it. It is
a handy reference to a variety of group
activities, but it is so much more than
that. Group leaders will find it a self-help
guide. Frustrated work teams will find it a
diagnostic tool to understand what is going
wrong. The chair of every committee can
only hope that committee members are
familiar with the content. I highly recommend that practitioners and students get
a copy of this book and implement it in
their practice. We will all be better off for
doing so.
Reviewed by Peter A. Kindle, Ph.D., CPA,
LMSW, assistant professor, University of South
Dakota, [email protected].
Treating Women With Substance Use Disorders
During Pregnancy: A Comprehensive Approach
to Caring for Mother and Child, by Hendree E.
Jones and Karol Kaltenbach. Oxford University
Press, New York, 2013, 210 pages, $55.
Providing services to people diagnosed with substance use issues is a
challenging enterprise for many new social
workers, as most baccalaureate and master’s programs give a cursory overview of
substance use issues within the curriculum.
Students do not often think of specializing
in providing services to pregnant women
with substance use issues, yet this is an
area social workers are likely to encounter.
Substance use disorders often precede
pregnancy. Simply abstaining from substances during pregnancy may be easier
said than done, especially for women who
have complicated histories with