Helping Ourselves: A Handbook for Women Starting Groups

Janet Money is a writer and policy analyst for the Canadian Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation in Toronto.

Helping Ourselves is a self-help book about self-help groups, a handbook for individuals or groups to make it easier to form and function as a group.

Although aimed at women, most of the advice on group structure could apply to men as well. However, the examples used are solely women’s groups.

Self-help groups can be organized to assist in job searches, to support battered women, or for any concern women share. Without the expense of professional therapy, women can find company and support in self-help groups. The authors suggest that women with common experiences are well qualified to help each other.

The handbook offers advice on finding women to join a group, setting up ground rules and a plan of operation, conducting group sessions, getting along with group members, changing the focus of a group, even ending a group. Using plain language and frequent examples, the book makes potential problems seem easy to resolve.

An interesting list of suggested readings on topics of interest to women is included.