Running head: TEAM PURPLE GROUP CONTRACT
SAMPLE Team Purple Group Contract
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Indiana University School of Social Work
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TEAM PURPLE GROUP CONTRACT
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Team Purple Group Contract
Our group has been asked to develop a group contract to guide our work together. We
will use this assignment as an experiential process to inform our future work as social workers.
Through our experience of establishing rules including interpersonal guidelines, learning about
the roles we play within a group structure, and working within the guidelines of our group, we
believe we will begin the process of learning how to work effectively with groups.
Group Information
Our group met on December 23, 2013 to initiate a preliminary draft of our group
contract. Two of our four group members were present. The remaining members reviewed the
meeting notes and we incorporated their feedback into our contract. Our group chose Person X
to be the leader and spokesperson for our group. We chose to retain “Team Purple” as our group
name. Our group shared contact information including phone numbers and email addresses and
we decided to use email or text as our primary means of communication. The following table
displays each group members’ contact information:
Name
Information removed for
SAMPLE
E-mail
Phone Number
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During our initial one-hour meeting, we discussed all aspects of the assignment and used
the rubric to guide our discussion. We filled in as much of the information as we could in the
allotted time and submitted the notes to “Team Purple” for review and revision.
Group Goals
Our goals are simple, yet powerful. MSW graduate studies are time-consuming and
stressful especially with the demands of family and career. We hope our group serves as a
support to each other both professionally and personally. We have a common goal to use this
group to help make it easier to learn and use theory in our class assignments. Professionally our
goals are to support each other in learning how groups work and then applying what we learn in
our future careers as social workers. We hope to develop professional relationships with each
other beyond the confines of course work. We hope that this assignment is valuable in helping
us learn how to help our future clients in the best way possible while staying true to the National
Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics (2008) that places value on human relationships.
Personally, we hope this group grows us and expands our knowledge base adding multidimensionality to our lives.
Purposes & Benefits of Group
It is common for social workers to work in groups and while we focused the purposes and
benefits on what we want to personally use our group for, we believe the experiential aspect of
this exercise will provide invaluable insights that will inform our group practices as social
workers. Purposes and benefits we identified include:
TEAM PURPLE GROUP CONTRACT
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To develop working relationships with our classmates so we have colleagues we can
collaborate with as future social workers.

To use our group as a venue to develop our professional voice in a non-judgmental and
caring environment. We will benefit by embodying Carol Gilligan’s “a different voice”
metaphor (Forte, 2007) as we give each other permission to express our unique ideas.

To learn how to give and receive feedback constructively, while at the same time
increasing our self-awareness of what it feels like to give and receive feedback. This will
help us gain awareness of possible reactions our clients may experience around receiving
feedback.

To support each other in successfully completing this class by sharing the workload.

To become aware of communication problems in groups such as “group think” and
“hidden agendas.”

To expGrou and our perspectives with new ideas introduced from classmates so we can
learn from each other.
Theory can be difficult to understand and apply and we believe that through collaboration
we will learn more as a group as an individual. The overarching benefit of our group experience
is the hope that we will be better practitioners because we will have learned from each other
while growing ourselves as individuals.
Group Rules & Consequences
While we would like all members to participate equally, we are compassionate regarding
conflicting schedules and responsibilities. We agreed that each member is free to participate to
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the extent she is able, but must follow through on her commitments to the group. The following
are our agreed upon group rules and associated consequences:

Decisions are made in the group meetings by majority rules. If a group member is
not present in a meeting, she will forfeit her vote on any decisions made during the
meeting. If there is a tie in a decision, the topic will be discussed until a majority can
be reached, and if there is no time left in the meeting, the decision will be tabled until
the next meeting.
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Group members are expected to respond to all email or text requests for input within
24 hours, so assignments can be completed on time. If a group member does not
respond within 24 hours, she will forfeit her right to contribute to the assignment. If
group members consistently do not respond within 24 hours, at the request of our
group, they must send a note to the instructor stating they are not following the group
rules.

Group members are expected to come to meetings prepared and on time. If a group
member is going to be late or cannot make the meeting the group member is
responsible for communicating their absence, late arrival, or lack of preparation to the
group. If a group member is not prepared and on time for meetings, the member
forfeits her right to contribute to the assignment. If the group member does not email
the group letting them know she will be late or miss the meeting, she will be
responsible for scheduling the next group meeting.
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The group leader will be in charge of disseminating all group correspondence
including emails, agendas, and instructor feedback in a timely manner. If the group
leader does not fulfill this responsibility, our group will choose an alternate group
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leader. If our group leader does not email decisions to the group within 24 hours, our
group leader will receive feedback regarding the impact to group members at the next
meeting and submit a written apology to the group.
We anticipate group members are fully invested in receiving the benefits of working
together and these rules and consequences help establish clear expectations and avoid
misunderstandings. However, in the event a group member does not follow through on her
commitments, she will acknowledge her lack of contribution, she will submit herself to receiving
feedback from the group as to the impact of her actions, and she will discuss an appropriate
grade reduction consequence with the instructor.
Interactional Guidelines
We have created several interactional guidelines to assist us in working together as an
effective group and to help us understand the elements of group work. Our interactional
guidelines are as follows:

All opinions are welcome and everyone contributes by sharing their ideas in a nonjudgmental way that is respectful of themselves and others.

Group members will give ‘sandwich’ feedback. We will begin with an authentic
acknowledgement, then present constructive feedback, and then end with a positive
reflection.

If a group member is not satisfied or has a complaint, it is up to the group member to
discuss the situation with the group so the problem can be resolved.

If a group member receives a complaint from another group member, she will ask the
member with the complaint to bring the complaint to the group for discussion.
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If there is a group assignment, group members will have 24 hours to review the final
product and give feedback prior to submission.

Group members should utilize the group for the support it provides. Group members
will make it a priority to provide support when it is requested.

All group members will assist in editing of group work and the group leader will
submit the final product and advise the instructor of any difficulties.
The ability to effectively work with groups is a valuable skill for social workers to have.
We believe that our experiential and active participation in this group, combined with our
simultaneous observation of our unique experience as individual group members, will benefit our
future clients.
Plan for managing and examining group effectiveness
As part of our plan for managing and examining group effectiveness, our group will
create a form listing the eight areas important to group work. The form will include a comment
section so members can leave their contribution. Three times throughout the semester, members
will update the form with an assessment of how effective she feels the group is and we will
conduct a final group meeting to share our experiences.
Our assessment form will include a scale measurement for each of the eight areas: stages
of group, process/product, goal/purpose, decision making/leadership, roles/norms,
deviance/diversity, membership, and theory. In the “Stages of Group” section, each member
will note what stage the group is currently in: forming, norming, storming, performing, or
adjourning; It is important that all members are aware of the correct stage we are currently in. In
the “Process and Product” section, members will rate how well they feel each member is
adhering to the group ruInterles and the quality of the input that is produced; Members will rate
TEAM PURPLE GROUP CONTRACT
themselves as well as each other. In the “Goal and Purpose” section, members will rate how
well we feel we are doing in reaching our goal and achieving our purpose. In the “Decision
Making and Leadership” section of the form, members will rate their personal satisfaction with
our decision-making process. In addition, members will rate the effectiveness of leadership in
the group so we can address any leadership problems in a timely manner.
We have identified group roles and expected behavior of group members. The leader
will facilitate interaction between the group members and handle all official communications
between the group and instructor. The leader will schedule meeting times and facilitate group
conference calls. All members will participate by adding their ideas, by giving the group leader
agenda items, and by acting in support roles to other group members. The following roles have
been assigned: Person X will take the role of observer; Person Y will take the role of giver;
Person W will take the role of seeker; Person Z will take the role of energizer. Person X is the
group leader and all four women are group members. In the “Roles and Group Norms” section
of the form we will provide a scale measurement so members can rate the perceived
effectiveness of each member.
While groups have their unique composition, they are made up of individual members
and we value and welcome all ideas. The “Deviance and Diversity” section of the form will
include a scale measurement for members to assess how well they feel their ideas have been
heard and received. The form will include a question to assess how well members feel the
guidelines have been followed. In assessing “Membership” our form will include open-ended
questions that allow members to share their experience of being a group member.
As this is a course in theory, we place significant importance on applying theory to our
group experience. All our discussions and interactions, including the assessment form, will
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include the question, “What theory can you apply to this circumstance?” In our final meeting,
we will discuss how each of the theories we’ve learned in this course can be applied to group
work.
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References
Forte, J. A. (2007) Human Behavior and the social environment: Models, metaphors, and maps
for applying theoretical perspectives to practice. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
National Association of Social Work. (2008). Code of Ethics. Retrieved from:
http://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp