American Self-Help Clearinghouse

American Self-Help Group Clearinghouse
SelfHelpGroups.org is home to the American Clearinghouse which provides there an online keyword-searchable database of over 1,100 national, online, and model self-help support groups for for most any specific illness, disability, addiction, bereavement situation, parenting, caregiver concern, abuse history, or other stressful life situation. They info on their website on starting agroup, and a worldwide listing of self-help group clearinghouses that can help you if you have one in your area. Based in NJ, they have a group information telephone helpline (973-989-1122), and some printed information self help groups, models and research. It is an established US national resource for finding self help groups for any medical condition or for researching mutual aid self help groups.
The N.J. Self-Help Group Clearinghouse
If you live in New Jersey, you'll also see that there's a link there to the local New Jersey Self-Help Group Clearinghouse, which you can phone from anywhere in NJ at 1-800-367-6274 or 1-800-FOR-M.A.S.H.(Mutual Aid Self-Help). While they don't have the contact info on all 4,500 of local no-fee NJ groups available online (you have to call them for most of them), they do have depression groups. They also have an online library with all types of how-to's for anyone wanting to start or is running a local community support group in NJ (you can phone them for basic help in starting any group in NJ any time - they helped a number of depression support groups to get started). 
"My years as a medical practitioner, as well as my own first-hand experience, have taught me how important self-help groups are in assisting their members in dealing with problems, stress, hardship and pain... the benefits of mutual aid are experienced by millions of people who turn to others with a similar problem to attempt to deal with their isolation, powerlessness, alienation, and the awful feeling that nobody understands... Health and human service providers are learning that they can indeed provide a superior service when they help their patients and clients find appropriate peer support." 
- former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD
Category:Self help
Category:Depression
Category:Isolation