Independent nonprofessionals in the community: a case history analysis of a human relations program

For eight years a group of nonprofessional human relations trainers conducted a community-based Adult-Youth T-Group Program in a suburban community under the auspices of the Board of Education. Their history provides the material for this case analysis, which will focus on two sets of issues. One set of issues surrounds the fact that these group leaders were "independent nonprofessionals": trained but noncredentialed persons performing functions usually reserved for professionals (or performed under professional supervision) and performing them outside of institutional and professional boundaries. A second set of issues, only partially related to the first, surrounds the organizational dilemmas and social-political conflict which beset this team and the program which they conducted.