ABSTRACT
Based on my review of the literature and my experience with several human service organizations and academically based demonstration programs, I have developed a crude typology of support interventions (Gottlieb, 1988), which appears in Table 1. It is organized in terms of the level of intervention—some programs focusing on the individual, some on the relationship between two actors, some on the group or network level, and some on the institutional and community levels of intervention. Preliminary typology of support interventions
|
Level of intervention |
Examples |
|---|---|
|
Individual |
|
|
Support provider |
Promoting a network orientation to coping |
|
Promoting ways of coping that invite support |
|
|
Support recipient |
Controlling distress during supportive exchanges |
|
Dyadic |
|
|
Support from key network member |
Consultation to informal community caregivers |
|
Spouse-coach in the Lamaze method of childbirth |
|
|
Enlisting close associate in health habit change |
|
|
Lowering levels of expressed emotion (EE) |
|
|
Introduction of new tie |
Home visitor programs, including companions and friendly visitors |
|
Therapeutic partnerships between “fellow sufferers” |
|
|
Lay-helping alliances such as buddies, coaches, mentors, and preceptorships |
|
|
Group |
|
|
Support from set of network members |
Cultivation of natural-helping networks |
|
Network therapy and its variants |
|
|
Network/support assessment and development |
|
|
Grafting on a set of new ties |
Creation of support groups |
|
Family support programs such as Extend-a-Family and Family Clusters |
|
|
Psychosocial rehabilitation programs such as Fountain House and Lodge Society |
|
|
Social system |
|
|
Role redefinitions |
Expanded role for the primary nurse and high school homeroom teacher |
|
Organizational |
Workplace daycare programs |
|
policy/structural changes |
Network members room-in and assume care responsibilities in hospital Students in first year of high school stay together for core courses |
|
Community |
California’s “Friends Can Be Good Medicine” campaign |
|
Radio talk/phone-in shows featuring self-help groups |
