Creating a Community-Based Diabetes Self-Management Program

Thank you for focusing on this most important beginning! By the time people return for the weekly meetings, they will have gotten to "know" each other through the welcoming and introductions during the long initial session. By the next weekly meeting there will be some familiarity with each other, but I think we should still do a "quicker" re-introduction and a warm group welcoming of each other! I've heard that this is a real key in the twelve-step programs to help people want to return each time.

I currently attend three support groups and none of them welcome the participants in any formal way nor are participants introduced. I continue because I'm interested in what I can gleam from these support groups, but I have surely noted that there is often a lack of connection, warmth or caring shown toward the individuals who attend. In two of the groups, it is sort of a "closed-circle" group of people who know each other socially, but in the third there are more than 60 people who attend the monthly breakfast. I noticed the last time with this group that the program structure provided no time for the people to just plain socialize; as a result, they simply ignored the guest presenter and socialized during her presentation. With 60 people in an echoing gymnasium it's already hard to hear what's going on and some people are just plain rude! But the structure itself is not designed for real interaction, except for questions of the "expert". It's designed for "top-down" (I talk, you-all listen). By the way, that's another thing I've learned from most of these programs: "We're the experts, telling you, the patients, what you should be doing..." I find this to be hugely disappointing.