4 Hurdles When Facilitating an Illness Support Group

By Lisa Copen

After planning for your new illness support group for weeks, or perhaps even months, it's finally time to have your first meeting. You've gone through the steps of preparing a proposal to start up a support group. It's been approved by whoever is in charge, such as an organization or church. And you've put together a welcome folder for all the people who will attend. You have topics to discuss, speakers scheduled, and perhaps even a study planned.

Does all of this mean that your meetings will run perfectly? Despite your best plans, the chances are unlikely. Here are a few frustrations that you may encounter during those first meetings s they are worth acknowledging and being prepared for in advance.

(1) Few people attend.

How it feels: Disheartening. After putting in so much of your personal time (despite your own illness), it can be very disappointing to feel like dozens of people aren't benefiting from all of your hard work and passion. Recognize that a low turnout is typical and not something to be taken personally. It can be extremely difficult to organize people who are ill to show up at the same place at the same time. One obvious reason is that when they feel ill, they are less likely to leave their home and go socialize with others. Just talking can be physically draining. And when they feel well, the last thing they may want to do is sit around and talk about the days they are in physical pain.

What to do: A good motto is "Hope for the best and prepare for the few." HopeKeepers is a Christian small group program that serves the chronically ill, and their founder says, "Although it's discouraging when just a couple of people come, we try to concentrate on the fact that God planned that specific meeting. Once I had just one person come to my group and I was bummed out, but we ended up having the best conversation. Later she said that she was terribly shy and probably wouldn't have even spoken if others had attended the meeting."

Keep an outline of your lesson, and include what topics were discussed. Then you can easily "repeat" the meeting with little preparation. And it may not hurt to call people, and without pressuring them, ask if there is anything that you can do to make it easier for them to attend. For example, do they need a ride? What is their best time of day for a meeting?

(2) Your lesson plan is completely ignored.

How it feels: You may be quick to assume that your ideas are just not interesting or helpful enough for people's circumstances. You may even feel a touch of anger that people don't appreciate the time you spent preparing.

What to do: Allocate more than usual flexibility in your timeline at first and then add in more structure as the group meets and you begin to see how it flows. It's most likely that people are so excited to meet one another who understand what they experience living with daily chronic pain, that they just want to talk. You've provided a forum where the floodgates of pent up emotions are sure to spill over as soon as they realize they are allowed to be honest and vulnerable. It's impossible to hold up a book and point people back toward your lesson plan when one of the members is sobbing over her daughter who has told her mom her illness is "all in your head" and until she gets over it they are done. This type of situation can occur at any meeting, but it may be more frequent during the first month.