Support Group Guidelines

Purpose of the Support Group

• The support group will give you a great place to be witnessed while you celebrate, express concerns, create action plans, and make commitments about ways you will improve the quality of your life.
• Your group will also help you get to know and support other Community members by observing and affirming their process and progress while revealing your own as an inspiration to them.

Schedule

• One call every month (or more if all members agree)
• Website options for scheduling
  www.MeetingWizard.com
  www.doodle.com
  www.When2Meet.com

Gathering Options

• Telephone
  www.freeconferencecall.com
  www.freeconferencing.com
  www.joinme.com (to share your screen with others)
• Skype – free
• Google hangouts – free
• www.zoom.us  (One person in the group would need an account, which costs $14.99 per month.)

Process

Pick a leader each month. For the first month, choose as the leader the group member whose first name is closest to the beginning of the alphabet. As a group, choose thereafter. Not everyone has to take the role of leader, but we recommend it as a practice.

The leader will:

• Set the meeting time.
• Manage the agenda.
• Manage the meeting so that every item gets covered.
• Manage the speaking so that each person has about the same amount of time.

Please remember to

• Honor the commitment to confidentiality

  Commitment to Confidentiality

  X

  1. Commit to not telling anyone outside the support group what people inside the group have said.
  2. Commit to not talking to the group members about what other members have said.
  3. Most importantly, commit to not bringing back to group members what they have shared. If they want to bring it up, let them do it.

  This commitment creates safety and gives members permission to choose what they’re going to talk about instead of what others think they might want to talk about.

  Example #1: In your last group session, a member said, “My wife went to the emergency room.” Now you’re in your next session. But remember, this isn’t a social time. It’s a support group. Your job is to keep what that member said confidential and in the past. So if you say, “Dave, how is your wife?” it sounds really nice and supportive and wonderful, but if Dave wants to tell you how his wife is, let him bring it up.

  Example #2: A member mentioned a challenge at work. Every week for a month, someone asked him about that challenge.  However, if he wants to tell you about it, he can bring it up at the check-in, the celebration round, or the challenge round. In addition, he might have something way more important to celebrate or to ask for assistance with than his work challenge.

  It’s a common social convention to bring things up again and ask after an issue or problem. But in the spirit of this Community of confidentiality, we ask you not to do this.

  Close
  as Dave defines it
• Listen to promote authenticity and brilliance

Recommended Agenda

• Quick check-in
  • Each member gives a couple of sentences about their current mood.
• Celebration round
  • Report on the progress of your previous commitments.
  • This gives you someone to tell your results to, other than yourself.
• Challenge round
  • What challenges or problems are you facing?
• Requests for assistance/advice
  • Remember to give advice only if it is specifically requested.
• Commitment round
  • What – be as specific as you can.
  • When – include timelines on as many commitments as possible.