Are you or is someone you know an adult survivor of child abuse?
A group of Safe Passage volunteers and friends recently formed a support group for adult survivors of child abuse. Please share this information with anyone you know who may be interested.
This support group meets virtually via Zoom on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month at 7PM CDT.
If you would like to attend the next virtual Zoom meeting (or if you have any questions) please email Karen at knestingen@earthlink.net to register and receive your Zoom login information.
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More information about the support group:
These are regular Zoom meetings with the possibility for occasional in-person meetings if group members desire.
In developing this approach we have borrowed from other successful models which suggest that support groups may be effective in promoting healing in ways that traditional therapy cannot.
This is a participant-led approach.
The following section describes the ground rules and process for the group meetings.
Welcome and ground rules for adult survivors of maltreatment support group
We welcome you to the Survivors of Childhood Abuse meeting, and hope you will find help and friendship in this group
We who have survived the experience of abuse as a child understand as perhaps few others can. We carried that experience with us through adolescence and into adulthood. We urge you to try our meetings. We share our experiences, strength, and hope.
We will introduce ourselves by first name only. Anonymity is an important concept for our program. Please do not share who or what you have heard here. Everything that is said in the meeting should stay in the meeting. This is the way we will feel safe to share our true thoughts and feelings. There are no right or wrong statements.
When speaking use I statements instead of “we”, “you” or “they”. Please share your feelings and experiences. Each person is responsible to share what they want or need to share. We each know what is best for ourselves, and may take a break from the meeting if feels the need to do so.
Your attendance is supportive for everyone and appreciated. Speaking and sharing your feelings is a gift and listening is a gift. You may pass if you do not want to share. Trust your inner guide.
Avoid problem solving for others or giving advice. We learn how to solve our own problems by listening to others and to ourselves. Practice active listening and relate others sharing to your own experiences. Do not interrupt or ask questions of the speaker. What each person shares is sufficient. We respect that each person will share as much as they choose to share at this time. We must respect how difficult our experiences have been, and that healing is often one slow step at a time. We support each other in taking those small steps.
Any silence that happens during the meeting will provide us time to reflect. No one needs to feel responsible to break the silence. Silence is often a gift.
Our meetings last for approximately 1 hour. We will have a meeting topic and a time for open sharing. Please use your sharing time wisely so that all may have time to share. There is no cross talk. If you would like feedback on your sharing, ask for feedback, and that can be given during the open discussion. In giving feedback, relate the subject to your experiences, and refrain from giving advice. By sharing our stories and experiences with healing, we will each find our own solutions to our problems.
We support each other by sharing our stories and affirming that we are not alone in our feelings. We share ways we have worked on our own healing. This is a support group, not a therapy group.