support

Self-Help And Support Group Information

cont.

That Is The Question?

In working in many group environments I always encounter a wide range of styles in the participants. Some people want a rigid structure, some people want a little structure, some want a "brainstorming" session, and some want absolutely no structure whatsoever. Which is right, no one can say, and you certainly can't please everyone, but you can decide what works for you and what doesn't. Hopefully you can either start, or find a group that uses some kind of agreed upon approach that may meet your needs. No matter what the group that tries to "be everything to everyone" will have a very limited amount of success.

What appears to be a major issue for ADD Adult groups is leader or organizer "burnout," often caused by a few people taking all the organizational responsibility for the groups, while the participant population changes from month to month. New people may come to the group, share how they feel for a few weeks or months only to stop coming to the group, just when the participants were getting to know each other. This can cause the group organizer to explain the same rules, guidelines and materials over and over and never get to work on ADD issues, or worse, never get beyond the beginning stages of learning about ADD. Certainly any group that has been in existence very long will need to decide if they are going to remain a "beginners" group, or if they will work with more experienced ADDers and hold separate meetings for the "newcomers" once a month. This approach is similar in many ways to the one used in AA where some meetings are "open" to all, and some are "closed" to new comers.

At the same time, group organizers or facilitators may need to decide if once they have found an approach or structure that works for them, do they want to stick with it, or in some cases continue to have an unstructured group. No matter how you approach this, many of your participants will want some sort of structure after a period of time. If you are not comfortable doing that, you can look for someone in the group who needs that sort of approach to take the responsibility for running a more structured group.

Several considerations have become clear over time with ADD Adult Groups, especially those run by people who are not health care providers.

1. You will need to be willing to work with newcomers, and may prefer to have separate meetings to help this group.
2. You will have participants who want a more casual sharing atmosphere like you might find in a "support" or open discussion group.
3. Given enough time you will have ADD adults who want to work in a more structured atmosphere to learn compensation techniques.
4. If you do this long enough you will want to have learned how to keep some kind of order in any group, just in case the meeting gets totally out of control. (Believe me, this does happen!)

Teaching, Talking Or Listening

So we have several approaches to choose from, one which uses the health care provider as facilitator and the other which does not. It is easy to see how a health care provider can get access to information, but often due to geographic problems, or financial one, we must turn to each other for our help, support and training. This is often the case in many of the groups which I help support.

Many groups start small and have limited resources. They may not have a meeting place or a trained facilitator, and mostly rely on their shared experience and a few books for information to discuss at their meetings. These are the types of groups that I most often support, since resources are more limited and the need for support, information and training is not being provided by heath care professionals for a variety of reasons.

Here I use the ASK System (Adults Seeking Knowledge) approach, which relies mainly on the meeting guidelines and training materials to provide structure, and not on having a health care provider or professional facilitator to run the meeting. In answer to requests from ADD Adults, I have expanded the ASK approach to include both support and skills development groups.

A key element in the ASK system is the use of guidelines (rules for the meeting) and a purpose or mission statement. Although these will differ depending on the type of ADD Adult Group, they serve the purpose of providing a common focus, as well as heading off possible conflicts from people who could be disruptive to the order of the group.

I feel that structure can have significant value for ADD Adults because often what we need to learn can be improving social skills including communication. Often ADD adults may have difficulty listening to others, keeping track of what is going on and actually "sticking" with one topic long enough to really explore it. By having a sense of the guidelines and purpose of the group from the very beginning the ADDer can work to stay on focus for a limited period of time. By listening without interrupting we learn a skill that will be appreciated by everyone we have interrupted or cut off so many times in the past, be it an employer, spouse or friend. The group provides a safe environment for us to practice developing these skills without fear of "put downs" or other misunderstandings that we have become accustomed to. In many ways, the structured meeting can be useful for the ADD adult, even if they don't understand all the material being presented. We can learn from simply showing up, and doing our best to participate according to the group rules and guidelines.

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