It was the third group working with the refugees and asylum seekers…I have not found it the easiest group mainly because of the language difficulties, but also because people turn up to the centre to simply get support with practical issues they are facing, so when they see a creative group happening that they no nothing about they are understandably not interested in engaging. So i have felt that I`ve been split between engaging the group members who come every week and trying to engage new people who turn up to the centre. I have become less concerned about engaging new people who turn up, instead I have been welcoming them with a cup of tea and leaving it up to them to show an interest in the group or not.
The group members who do come every week turn up throughout the group, so it`s difficult to start and finish any activity together; each person ends up at a different stage. This means explaining the activity about ten times during the session, as each group member turns up. This process of having to repeat myself feels really draining for me and I wonder about the impact on the group? It leaves me wondering about boundaries (not for the first time), whether it would be better to be stricter about the time the group started, but this would mean losing a lot of participants. Is it better that they turn up when they can and engage?
However despite these difficulties, for the first time since working with the group it felt like we had time where we were working as a group experimenting and playing with ideas together. This felt so calming and people commented how “therapeutic” it felt. The activity didn`t involve many instructions, which I think really helped create this flow within the group.
