Self-help support for chronic illness-societal challenges and current approaches

Community self-help in self-help groups is socially recognized as aform and culture of informal help. Knowledge is gathered and common strategies for coping with everyday life in chronic illness or disability are developed. Self-help clearinghouses at 300 locations in Germany significantly support the foundation and work of self-help groups. The increasing involvement of self-help in healthcare through participation rights and cooperation necessitate an expansion of the range of tasks of self-help clearinghouses. Likewise, societal framework conditions such as demographic development and digitalization make demands on the counseling competence of specialists in self-help support. The support of generational change in self-help groups and the acquisition of young people for aself-help commitment is atask for the future. Depending on the resources available, self-help clearinghouses manage to address development challenges and include them in aprocess of organizational and quality development.