Self-Help Groups

People with a shared problem, concern or interest who form an organization to support one another.

Clients Are a Talent Pool, Too, Susan J. Ellis
Starting Self-Help Groups (Lay Persons), Barbara J. White and Edward J. Madera, eds., The Self-Help SourceBook: Finding and Forming Mutual Aid Self-Help Groups, American Self-Help Clearinghouse
Self-Help Sourcebook Online

All sorts of information for running a self-help group, including links to existing groups and tips for effective online support.

Law Enforcement Settings

Supervision Involves Trust
Submitted by Barbara Lightheart, Travis County Jail , Texas, USA

Supervision involves trust. About a quarter of the 380 volunteers here are Twelve-Step volunteers, who lead AA, Narcotics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous meetings to supplement our in-house drug and alcohol treatment program. We know these Twelve-Step programs are vitally important to our inmates so we do what to some volunteer coordinators and direct supervisors may seem very unorthodox: we let these volunteers replenish their own numbers by recruiting others. I do not recruit, interview or screen them because we understand the anonymous nature of their work and we trust these volunteers to do their work effectively and successfully. They do.