One of the hardest parts of being a caregiver for a disabled family member, regardless of the family member's age, is the feeling of isolation. You are mostly alone, all day and every day, because the person you're caring for needs too much help for you to leave. This means that one of the things that make it so hard to break your isolation is time -- time to get away for a while, maybe even talk to people in the same boat as you with a disabled family member of their own.
Support groups have been shown to be one of the most effective ways to recharge caregiver's "batteries." If there isn't a support group near you, or one that can meet at a time you have free, consider starting your own.
Instructions
1. Establish a meeting place. Before you announce that your group is up and running, you need a place to meet. Check with churches near your house -- and don't limit yourself to the church or denomination you belong to. Most churches have plenty of available meeting space during the week, from fellowship halls to libraries to adult Sunday school rooms for free or for a very small fee.
Speaking of libraries, check and see if your public library has a meeting room you can use. If you live near a college or university, see if it might be willing to host your weekly meeting.
2. Get the word out. Once you have a meeting place and a time you think will be convenient for attendees, it's time to let interested parties know you are starting a group. See if you can place flyers at the doctor's offices you and your disabled family member frequent the most. In fact, you may already know people who are waiting to come to your group just from those doctor visits alone. Ask merchants near your meeting place if they'd be willing to put your flyer in their window. Contact your local provider of in-home medical equipment and ask if you can leave some flyers with them.
3. Alert the media. Check with your local newspaper. Many papers print a community calendar which lists upcoming non-profit functions (such as 12-step group meetings). Call the paper and find out who you need to tell about your group to get it in the community calendar.
Check with your local cable provider. Many cable television providers, especially those away from large metropolitan areas, have an "access channel" that shows various Power Point slides about local events (upcoming programs at the library, for instance) in a continuous loop. Contact one of the groups who already have a slide on the access channel and ask them who to contact at the cable company.
4. Go online. See if there is an online group (like a Yahoo group) in your area, join it, and mention your in-person support group in an email post. Consider joining a group facilitating service like meetup.com that will email interested parties with reminders that your next meeting is coming up.
5. Make the first meeting a big one -- and advertise. There is probably someone from your local professional medical community who would be willing to be a guest speaker at your first meeting. Doing this could get the announcement of your meeting not only on the newspaper's community calendar but as part of an article about you, your fledgling support group, and your guest speaker. You don't have to have a guest speaker every time, but having one for the first meeting is bound to generate more interest and, more important, get the word out about the support group.
Tags: family member, your local, Check with, community calendar, disabled family, disabled family member, first meeting