Support Groups

Support groups are the perfect place to find support and friendship.

Jan 4, 2008 Megan Drummond

There are a variety of support groups available locally or online to help you deal with your specific disability.

Whether you’re newly disabled and just need to talk to someone who has been there or you’ve been disabled for 20 years and have a wealth of helpful advice to give, there’s a support group out there for you.

A variety of support groups are available to help you cope with your, your spouse’s or your child’s specific disability. With all the medical help and professional advice that is readily available these days, sometimes just having someone to listen and empathize is the “best medicine” there is.

If you want to find a support group in your area, the first logical step is the phone book. Most phone books include a heading for support groups in the yellow pages. If you come up empty, try calling your local hospital, visiting nurse’s association or even the YMCA. All of these places will most likely have the contact information for the specific type of support group you are looking for.

If you can’t find a support group for your specific disability, you could consider starting one of your own. It’s a fairly easy process to start a support group:

  • First, determine the level of interest for the support group in your area. Make a flyer. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy; just ask if people would be interested in joining a support group for your type of disability and be sure to include your name, phone number and a date by which they should reply. Hang the flyers on campus, church or community bulletin boards. Or, just put an ad in the newspaper.

  • Once you have established that interest exists in your topic and have enough initial responses to your support group, you’ll need to find a leader. The leader of the support group can be you or someone who responded to your ad. Ask a friend or someone in your church to head the group. If you can’t find a leader right away, don’t get discouraged. Just remember that you’re doing something good for yourself and for others.
After these initial steps have been taken, you’ll need to find a space for your support group to meet. Hospitals, churches and schools often make space available to support groups. You also might consider contacting a national organization for your disability. While this is not necessary for your support group, national organizations often have information that small, local support groups find helpful.

If you are newly disabled or not just that comfortable around a large group of people, there are a multitude of disability-specific support groups online. These websites offer a network of support and advice or just a place to hang out, chat and make new friends. Some of the websites you can visit to find a support network include CarePlace.com, New Mobility and Surviving Paralysis.

The copyright of the article Support Groups in Disabilities is owned by Megan Drummond. Permission to republish Support Groups in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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Feb 15, 2009 9:28 AM
EdinNJ :
For help in finding or forming your own self-help group, check to see if there is any local self-help group clearinghouse that serves your area, e.g., people in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Kansas have their own statewide self-help group clearinghouse that they can turn to for free help. For a current listing of local self-help group clearinghouses worldwide, just go to:
http://www.mentalhelp.net/selfhelp/selfhelp.php?id=859

Take care and hope,
- Ed



"Start your Community. It won't be easy. You'll be scared. You will often feel that you don't know what you're doing. You'll have a difficult time persuading people to join you. Many initially won't want to make the commitment, and those who are willing to, will be as scared as you. Once you get started it will be frustrating. There will be chaos. Most will consider dropping out, and some probably will. But hang in there... And then suddenly you will find yourself in the clear air of the mountaintop, and you'll be laughing and crying and feeling more alive than you have in years - maybe more alive than you've ever been."
- M. Scott Peck, MD, in The Different Drum, 1997.

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