Forming a Support Group for Families of Deployed Women and Men

• Make your meeting place a neutral - not religious - space. This may allow for a variety of issues to emerge. Make it a "safe" place to air the issues of the participants. Your job is to open a space and facilitate the ability of a support group to exist.
  
• Don't start a group unless you intend to follow through and help the group get their needs addressed. Be committed for as long as it takes. Remember new needs may arise after military personnel return.
  
• A peer to peer structure will probably be most effective in this situation mixed with a couple of facilitators.
  
• Let the group determine its own agenda. Don't feel compelled to set the tone or start discussion. The members may just need to talk with each other. They will be able to support each other in ways no one from the "outside" can.
  
• Groups without rules seem to develop into the most effective, cohesive groups. Having expressed this: one guideline for this group must be established such that the group is NOT being formed to encourage any political agenda.
  
• Do your research and find out what resources are available to military families. Find out what outreach your particular group needs, such as:
  Childcare for meetings and otherwise
  Transportation
  Financial Management
  Stress management
  Be willing and ready to organize a way if possible to meet these needs.
  
• Army community service has a vast network of resources. If you have not already familiarized yourself with what they offer, you may do so at http://www.armycommunityservice.org/home.asp.
  
• Invite people to come through announcements. Do not pressure people to attend.
  
• Avoid assumptions about what the family members of a deployed military person might need, feel or think. Avoid the temptation of telling participants how they should feel, think or what they should need or how they should respond to their situation. Listen and gather information.
  
• If at all possible have a trained counselor who can meet with the group on a regular basis if they feel that would be beneficial. Before you start the group you might want to contact a trained counselor who understands what you intend to do and who would be willing to be available to answer your questions or members questions or needs.
  
• Listen. It is not necessary to have answers.
  
• Be willing to find resource people who will come to the group to talk about:
  Single parenting
  Managing finances
  Dealing with stress
  Other needs as they arise

As a facilitator:

• You are not a teacher. You are not a newspaper reporter. You are not a coach. You are not an authority. You are not a judge. You are not a therapist.
  
• You are a person who is there to listen and help members to know that it is okay to be feeling whatever or however they are feeling.
  
• Your job, as a facilitator, is to create relationships that are characterized by genuineness and real feelings. Your duty is to provide a warm, unconditional regard and acceptance of, even a prizing of, the other persons as separate individuals.
  
• Be available for the group's needs in person or arrange for someone to act consistently as a facilitator to maintain an open environment where all are heard, one who can respond to an emergency, and who will keep the doors open. The facilitator is to be there in person but is not the source of all answers.
  
• When you respond to a group member, refrain from expressing your own opinion on the matter; refrain from making value judgments about what a group member has said. Only affirm each speaker with a response that shows each person that you were listening to that person.
  
• Do your best to develop a sensitive ability to see each person's world and each person as that person sees her world and herself - but do not ever tell her what she is feeling or what she should be feeling.
  
• Be sensitive to the psychological stability of each participant. If an individual seems to be in an unstable state and needs to go to the emergency room, even if you are unsure whether or not that person is a danger to themselves or others, accompany them to the emergency room anyway.
  
• Maintain the confidentiality of everything said or done within the support group, and remind the members in the group to do the same. As bonds develop they will come to know why confidentiality is important.
  
• Be prepared to continue this group even after soldiers return to deal with the vast reintegration issues, some of which are mentioned in this Washinton Post article.

Click here to learn about a North Carolina help line project that can be emulated.
Click here for more resources during this troubled time.