Page 351 - Nutrition Counseling and Education Skills: A Guide for Professionals

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Summary

As professionals, we all belong to groups and attend meetings. We also manage, facilitate, and lead groups.
This chapter discusses the several stages of group development, group and team dynamics and their
characteristics, the roles and functions of the leader or facilitator as well as the roles and functions of both the
facilitator and the group member. Increasing group cohesiveness, promoting change in groups, and managing
meetings are included. Readers can start applying the information now in their own groups, whether social,
work, professional, or other groups.

Review and Discussion Questions

1. What are the responsibilities of a group facilitator?
2. What are the responsibilities of a group or team member?
3. Discuss the stages of group development.
4. What are the characteristics of group dynamics?
5. Discuss the differences between the formal and the informal work group.
6. What are the ways to increase group cohesiveness?
7. Discuss several of the participant functions and how they generally either aid in promoting the group’s effectiveness or assist in

accomplishing the group’s task.

Suggested Activities

1. In groups of three, discuss the best small group experiences you have ever had. What occurred that qualifies them as superior? Describe
specific behaviors of both the group’s leader or facilitator and the participants that seem to have made a difference. Time should be allotted
for each group to share its insights with the others.

2. In groups of three, plan to meet in two different settings over the next 2 days, with different seating, room size, lighting, and the like. Report
your observations on the effects of the environment to the entire class. Notice whether different groups had similar reactions and were
influenced by the same factors. A simpler variation on this activity would be to hold a discussion for 10 minutes with the group arranged in a
circle and then to continue the discussion with the group sitting in a straight row.

3. Make a list of two small groups in which you have been active and describe the functions you performed in each. Compare your perceptions
of yourself as a contributing group member with the perceptions that your friends or classmates had of you. Do you notice that you
performed different functions in different groups? Do some functions overlap from group to group? Are your classmates in agreement with
you regarding your functions within their group?

4. Thinking back to some recent experiences in group discussions, complete each of the following statements:
A. “My strengths as a group participant are . . .”
B. “My strengths as a group facilitator are . . .”
C. “What is keeping me from being more effective both as a participant and as a facilitator is . . .”
D. “My plans for improvement are . . .”

5. Write a question or description of a food or nutrition problem or issue, preferably from your own personal or professional experience, for
which you do not have a solution. Present it to a small group and facilitate their discussion. Possible questions might include “What
populations need to take vitamin supplements?” “What are the best food choices when eating at a fast-food outlet?” “What recommendations
should one give to someone who desires to reduce calories or exercise more?”

6. Group together four to five people who have a common problem such as wanting (1) to lose weight, (2) to start eating breakfast, (3) to
control excess consumption of snacks, (4) to select nutritious meals, (5) to increase the fiber content of their diets, or (6) to exercise more
often. State the problem and have the group attempt to solve it.

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