Our Purpose is to put Self Help Groups firmly on the professionals essentials list
Why is this necessary? I hear you ask. Well many NHS trusts leave the issue of Self Help Groups to individual members of staff, therefore the group which is a Nurse or Doctors pet gets lots of input and those people who are having treatment or have just been diagnosed get told personally about that group. However if a group has no professional batting for it. People are given a book with the details of the group on some obscure page which never gets looked at or if it is noticed it is dismissed because no-one mentioned it. Most people coming to our Cancer support group have found out about us through a friend of a friend etc. They all say they were not told that such groups existed.Many were upset they had been left for so long without any person who had been through the same as them to talk to.
In Short Self Help Groups need health Professionals to talk to People affected by Cancer about the various groups in the area. We have met many people who have been through much of their journey alone, they have had no help. If they had been put in contact with an individual who has been through the system and could help simply by being there and showing life can be worth living again. People need to fit their treatment around their life instead of their life around the treatment. Self Help Groups can provide the type of support that a health professionals, as a general rule, cannot give.