Self-help groups facilitate mutual assistance. They offer a vehicle for people with a common problem to gain support and recognition, obtain information on, advocate on behalf of, address issues associated with, and take control of the circumstances that bring about, perpetuate, and provide solutions to their shared concern. Self-help groups may be small informal groups, confined to interactive support for their members, or differentiated and structured multiservice agencies. In the latter case, they are recognized in the self-help community as mutual assistance organizations, as distinct from professionally led organizations, when they are directed and staffed by “self-helpers” and when these self-helpers are well represented as board members and have the right to hire and fire professionals in the organization. Self-help groups and organizations empower members through shared example and modeled success. Spread throughout the world they are a major resource to social workers seeking to help their clients to help themselves.
Article
Self-Help Groups and Organizations
Steven P. Segal
Article
Transgender People
M. J. Gilbert
In this entry, transgender is defined in the context of ethnomethodology and social construction of gender. A history of the role of transgender people in the gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights movement is presented, including tensions concerning the role of transgender people in this movement. Issues regarding social work practice related to transgender issues on the micro, mezzo, macro, and meta levels are discussed.
