How to Run a Parent Support Group
Moving from family-centered to peer-influenced, youngsters waltz into their teen years experiencing powerful rushes of emerging independence and coursing hormones. These emotions and feelings can morph the best-behaved youngster into an unrecognizable visitor from outer space, but you also know that other creatures came to Earth on the same space ship. They are your child's friends. That's why you may be thinking of starting a parent support group. There's much to encourage the formation of such an alliance, but like most organizations, group success or failure will reflect the organization's core. That said, launching a group that will help you and others survive these years with your collective senses of humor intact might be the best idea you've ever come up with.
Instructions
Set goals and objectives to keep everyone on the same page. Examples of objectives are: Discuss ways to keep our children out of trouble; maintain confidentiality at all times; limit discussions to child-related issues; support each other with compassion and tolerance. Each parent support group is unique. Only you can determine what will work for your community. Draw up rules and guidelines to help structure the group. These differ from goals and objectives in that they set meeting standards. Examples of rules you might want to adopt are: No late arrivals; give everyone a chance to speak; and participants must have at least one child between the ages of 12 and 16 to affiliate with the group. Solicit members. Some parents are up-front about concerns and frustrations and don't mind sharing their problems. Others may be reticent to share their issues. Opening your group to all interested parties will require doing some outreach through schools, churches and community organizations. Organizers can start the ball rolling by posting flyers in prominent places, making phone calls to friends and sending around e-mails to advise the community of the group's formation and meeting venue. Assign tasks to members. At the first meeting, ask for volunteers to help with the group's maintenance. Most groups will benefit from the help of people taking responsibility for communications, meeting set-ups, keeping the calendar, preparing a rudimentary handbook or fact sheet or simply providing coffee, cookies and tissues. Spreading assignments among many members cements the bond and should be encouraged. Set an agenda. With the exception of the first meeting--at which time meeting locations, dates and times can be calendared for the year ahead--agendas will keep future meetings on point. Typical agenda items might be: Start time, topic for discussion lead by a volunteer, shared advice, break time, general problem solving and conclusion. Send agendas by e-mail to all participants a week before each get-together. Calendar meetings far in advance. Most families spend their days racing along a freeway of appointments, so setting a year's worth of meeting dates in advance gives participants an opportunity to reserve parent support night dates. Set the calendar at the first meeting, then follow up by sending a complete list of meeting dates to participants via e-mail. Audit the group every six months to be sure you are staying on track. The parent support audit simply tracks whether or not the group's goals and objectives are being met. For instance, has the meeting acted as a support mechanism for parent members or has it become a personal forum for some to monopolize the group? Research has proven that people drop out of support groups most often because they don't feel they are being heard by the membership. Set policies for adding new members over time. When members drop out because their child has aged out, they have moved or they choose to stop participating, adding new members can add a fresh breath of air to the organization. It can also trigger dissent among those who are change-resistant, so be cautious about putting a wedge into the group dynamic without plenty of preparation first.
