If you have the opportunity, it is certainly helpful for you to turn to a self help contact office when you wish to form a self help group. They will tell you in full detail about the steps required and also give you practical support.

Before forming a self help group, it is important to specify (precisely) the topic of the self help group and to be clear on your intentions in forming this group.

To form a self help group you need further interested persons who are also affected by your topic. Hence the first step is to look for these interested persons.

Experience has shown that to draw the attention of interested persons to your call to form a self help group, it is helpful to display or distribute a leaflet or flier. The places especially suitable for doing this are places to which it can be assumed that people personally interested in your topic are likely to come, e.g. self help contact offices, information centres, neighbourhood facilities, doctor’s offices, women’s centres, health centres, city centres, pharmacies, welfare stations, churches and other religious centres, clinics and hospitals.

The leaflet should probably be in colour and have DIN A4 or DIN A5 format; it  should definitely contain the following information:

• the topic of the group (in the title or text)
• the name of the group
  expectations placed on the group, the subject matter to be worked on
  that this is a call for persons who are personally affected and would like to form a self help group
• target group (including relevant restrictions on age, gender, etc.)
• contact telephone number or contact address
• The name generally indicates the topic, e.g. ‘self help group depression’ or ‘self help group neurodermitis’, but many groups give themselves a special, picturesque name, e.g. ‘silver thistles’ for a group of seniors, or ‘rainbow’ for a group of people afflicted with cancer.

Experience has shown that it is best to give the telephone number or address of a ‘neutral’ facility, e.g. of a self help contact office. Giving your own personal telephone number could lead to difficulties because there is no control on whom the leaflet is distributed or made known to. Also, it just might happen that you are called up at all hours of day and night.

Example:

NEW BEGINNING AFTER SEPARATION AND DIVORCE

In order to form a self help group we invite all interested men and women who are approximately 40 years old.

(or: we cordially invite all interested women in order to form a self help group on the subject of separation.)

Possible topics: all emotional problems, detachment, feelings of loneliness, fears, psychosomatic complaints, getting through the day without the partner, finding new goals in life.

We want to support each other, giving hope and strength. The group should start in September 2005.

Information and registration via SEKIS (Self Help Contact and Information Location), Albrecht-Achilles-Str. 65, 10709 Berlin, Telephone: 892 66 02,
eMail: sekis@sekis-berlin.de

Of course, you can also look for other interested persons by advertising in daily newspapers, city district magazines or other print media. The self help contact offices also publish appropriate self help newspapers and brochures in which self help groups can describe their work or look for new members.

You and the employees of the self help contact office can discuss all important steps for forming a group. Beyond that, the self help contact offices provide you with their address or telephone number as a contact address or number for all persons interested in joining your group.

These persons then register directly with the self help contact office, which keeps a list with their names and contact information.

SEKIS also has a central database with all existent self help groups and all calls to form a new group in Berlin. The list of calls to form a new group can be viewed in the SEKIS web site too.

As soon as enough persons have registered, invitations are sent out for the group’s initial meeting.

To say it plainly in advance: you will need a lot of patience! A call to form a self help group is not always successful within just 4 or 5 weeks. Sometimes it takes several months for enough interested persons to register so that the first meeting can be held.

Not all calls to form a new group lead to the desired success. Sometimes there are only isolated contacts and it become necessary to drop the call. Then there are simply not enough interested people to ensure a continual group process.

Self help groups do best to meet in ‘neutral’ rooms outside the personal sphere of individual group members. These rooms should be easy to reach by public transportation, inexpensive and accessible by persons with physical disabilities, including those on wheelchairs.

The self help contact offices generally have suitable rooms and provide these to self help groups at a low charge. There are also rooms at churches, counselling locations, health centres, doctor's offices, neighbourhood centres, etc.

Experience shows that it is better to start out with more rather than fewer members because there will always be a certain amount of fluctuation in the group, especially at the beginning.

Before invitations are sent for the initial meeting, normally at least 6 to 10 persons should have registered their interest.

Of course, this also always depends on the group’s topic. With a very narrow  topic or one that only affects people with a fairly rare illness it can also be worthwhile to start out with fewer participants.

Depending on what is agreed, the names, addresses, telephone numbers and possibly email addresses of the interested persons are collected by the contact person or the self help contact office. It should go without saying that this data is all treated as confidential for reasons of data privacy.

The invitation to the initial meeting (written, phone call or email) is given about 3 weeks in advance through or in coordination with the self help contact office.

It is usually best if the initial meeting takes place on a weekday in the early evening hours and lasts at most 2 hours (e.g. from 18 to 20 hours).

In connection with the search for persons interested in a new self help group there are generally expenses for paper, postage, newspaper ads and the like. When these expenses cannot be assumed by the self help contact office, they have to be paid by the person starting up the group.

But, as a matter of principle, all necessary expenses of the group should be shared by the members of the group.

Many people do not have confidence that they could build up a self help group. The look for counselling and support both for questions of organisation an for  preparation and conduct of the group meetings. The self help contact offices offer direct help here. As needed, an employee of the self help contact office can be present at the initial meeting and is available for questions about organisation and contents.

Important experience and information can also be conveyed by members of existent self help groups. A conference with persons from groups for the same or similar topics is recommended for the preparatory phase, when this is possible.