A Two Day Adventure Therapy Programme for Disadvantaged Youth

For the purpose of this assignment I have chosen to work with disadvantaged or disaffected youth from a programme in Dublin called Bradog Regional Youth Service. There are 10 participants aged between 13-18 years of age of mixed gender and ethnic backgrounds. Participants will take part in an intense two day adventure programme, focusing on developing these individuals with skills that will aid there development. The programme will be facilitated by outdoor adventure instructors and psychologists. The programme will consist of two sessions each day. Each session will involve and activity which will indirectly address development issues for adolescents. Through facilitation methods commonly used in adventure therapy the sessions will be reviewed and the relevant learning shall be drawn from the experience. All food and equipment will be provided by the centre. I have first-hand knowledge and experience with working with disadvantaged youth in an outdoor education centre in Ireland and will be drawing on my own experience when designing this programme.

I will first outline the issues that arise that are general to the entire programme. Then I will move on to cover the specific details of the programme.

Possible problems with the group

There are many problems that can arise when people are put into groups. There may be people that are just focused on themselves and find it hard to relate to others, or even get on with other people in a group situation.

When working in groups People often feel anxious about trying new things that are outside their comfort zone. This could cause someone to act out, as they have built up frustration that they are not able to do the task. Understanding this is key when teaching and facilitating clients. (Christian, 2011)

Stress on the Group and Staff

Stress is a reaction to fear or anxiety- arousing stimuli. The level and type of reaction is a function of type and character and severity of the stimuli, the capabilities of the person to control the stimuli or the response, and the social support available to the person.

Participants are most likely to experience fear of failure or fear of the unknown. This in turn causes stress. Stress can interfere with their productivity and have an impact on their emotional and physical health. My ability as a leader to deal with stress can have an effect on success or failure. It is important to make the group aware you cannot always control everything in the environment, but it does not mean you are powerless. When stuck in difficult situations it’s not about making huge changes but focusing on one thing at a time that is within your control.
Staff may get stressed if time is not managed properly in the programme. This can led to staff having no breaks or lunch throughout the day. It’s also important that equipment is safe and appropriate for the session being run. If the equipment is broken or not safe this adds extra pressure on staff members which can lead to stress. (Christian, 2011)
Group Management Style

There are a number of ways to manage and lead a group below is a brief description of the three main management styles. I intend to use all three of these styles throughout the programme when I deem each to be necessary.

Authoritarian leadership provides clear expectations for what needs to be done, when it should be done, and how it should be done. It is useful when completing a task with possible unwanted consequences for misdirection or misbehaviour.

Laissez-faire leadership is a type of leadership style in which leaders are hands-off and allow group members to make the decisions. This works quite well when you want to promote creativity and group cohesion.

Democratic leadership is a type of leadership style in which members of the group take a more participative role in the decision-making process. It’s effective and can lead to higher productivity, better contributions from group members, and increased group morale. (Laurance, 1990)

The rest of the assignment will be presented in the format of four session plans to cover each of the sessions in the programme. Each session plan will address:

• What the activity is?

• Social psychology behind the learning

• The Application of the psychology in the session?

Day 1 – Session 1

Activity – Rafting: This activity involves the entire group of 10 navigating a raft for 5km down a river. The group must work together to manoeuvre the raft to avoid river obstacles. Each group member will have a paddle to move the boat.

Psychology – Social loafing: Social loafing describes the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they are part of a group. Because all members of the group are pooling their effort to achieve a common goal, each member of the group contributes less than they would if they were individually responsible. (Christian, 2011)

Application of Psychology – this activity is good as a first session as it involves strong elements of teamwork. This gives me immediate feedback on how cohesive the group are to work as a team. It works really well in allowing the instructor to raise the topic of social loafing. In this sort of situation you are almost guaranteed to have at least one social loafer in a group. The activity allows the opportunity for group members to slack off as the river is moving the raft without effort from the group. Some group members see this as an opportunity to social loaf. It is easy to indirectly make people aware they are social loafing. Firstly ask the group to stop paddling the raft and see what happens. This will result in the raft crashing or turning over. Once they have regrouped ask them all to put in as much effort as they can. At this point they are aware you are assessing their effort and so they all put in more effort. You then point out how much better it is when everyone applies themselves to the task. This promotes cohesion in the group.

Day1 – Session 2

Activity – Names That Stick: Inform participants that you are going to place a sticker on each of their foreheads. After which they are to mingle as if at a party and follow only the directions of the stickers on each of their heads as they greet each other. The task involves most stickers having positive directions on them e.g. “Smile at me” or “give me a high five”. Depending on group size make around 10% of the stickers to have negative directions e.g. “turn away from me” or “completely ignore me”

Psychology – Prejudice: Prejudice is usually a negative attitude towards members of a group Common features of prejudice include negative feelings, stereotyped beliefs, and a tendency to discriminate against members of the group. Some psychologists believe that prejudice is a result of normal human thinking. In order to make sense of the world around us, it is important to sort information into mental categories. However research has showed that we tend to minimise the differences within a group but yet exaggerate the differences between different groups. (Smith & Loftus, 2003)

Application of Psychology – This is a great activity for highlighting prejudice to young people. They are actively involved in both feeling what it’s like to be the victim of prejudice and making people a victim of it. In order to highlight this learning to the group a review session with the entire group is necessary. The review focuses on thoughts and feelings of the group as they participated. Questions asked by the instructor would include, without looking at your label can you tell me what you think it says? What sort of people within society do you think have these sorts of labels? Have you any new insights on how a victim of prejudice feels?

Day2 – Session 1

Activity – Team/Initiative Tasks: Initiative games are fun, cooperative, challenging games in which the group is confronted with a specific problem to solve. We use initiative games for two reasons: These games demonstrate and teach leadership skills to the group, which helps to promote their growth. They also demonstrate a process of thinking about experiences that helps the group learn and become responsible citizens

Psychology– Group Think: Occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment. Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making (Janis, 1972).

Application of Psychology – It is quite common in adventure activities to experience groupthink especially with bigger groups while doing initiative tasks. In a negative group think situation the group may take the advice of the 1st person to talk, and when putting that person’s idea into practice they fail. If they had instead listened to other suggestions and evaluated each of them, they would have more chance of completing the task successfully. This is something that can be highlighted during a review of the tasks. You can make the group aware of groupthink issues so that they consider other options while preforming the next task.

Day2 – Session 2

Activity – Sailing: Sailing involves the group splitting into pairs and each pair will attempt to sail a small dinghy around a lake. The objective of the session is to give an introduction to sailing and grasp how to manoeuvre the boat in relation to the wind and inform the group of how sailing works.

Psychology – Conflict: Conflicts can rise high when working with troubled youth and unfortunately often rises between group members. It is vital that such matters are resolved immediately and they must not affect the development or progress of the rest of the group. Conflict cannot be resolved when there are heightened tensions and team members make personal attacks or aggressive gestures. It may need intervention from centre staff or psychologists for some conflicts to be resolved others may be resolved within the group. (Smith & Loftus, 2003)

Application of Psychology – This session requires a lot of work from the instructor during the review. The idea is to compare the activity to a real life scenarios, this can be done by comparing the boats conflict with the wind to conflicts in real life. In order to sail the boat efficiently the group must resolve the conflict that the wind poses on the boat to get it sailing instead of just blowing in the same direction of the wind. By drawing parallels to real life scenarios plus giving the group options to overcome the scenarios (in the same way you did with the activity) they learn that most conflicts can be resolved.

Bibliography

Christian, E. (2011). Adventure Education and Disaffected Youth. In M. Berry, Adventure Education - An Introduction (pp. 166-188). New York: Routledge.

Janis, I.L. (1972). Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign policy, Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

Laurance, M. (1990). The use of adventure in reducing and preventing socially deviant behaviour. In S. Priest, Adventure Education (pp. 379-383). Oxford: Venture Publishing Inc.

Smith, E., & Loftus, G. (2003). Introduction to Psychology. Toronto: Thomson & Wadsworth.