Grupa „Mamo odpocznij” jako przykład wspierania członków rodziny ucznia niepełnosprawnego

Abstract

The establishment of a support group for mothers was a result of long-term contacts and work with families affected by disabilities. Observations have shown that mothers are particularly overloaded. Round-the-clock care, feeding, dressing, activities related to maintaining personal hygiene, toilet, going for walks, lifting the child and the wheelchair combined with housekeeping and looking for the healthy siblings do not end with the natural process of growing up. To the contrary, with the passage of time the number of problems increases and handling them, literally and metaphorically, is becoming more and more difficult. A mother concentrates on the life, medicating and attending the child more than on herself; she neglects herself, her health and all types of needs. It happens that she overrides the needs, especially the emotional ones, of the other children and her husband. In spite of a big interest in the group’s programme mothers were anxious if they could devote so much time to themselves and how their absence would affect other family members. The aim of the programme was to make it possible for the participants to create a support group that would be able to cross the time frames of the programme. A group in which one could rest, share one’s experiences, increase the awareness and understanding of various situations but also learn new things. That is why the programme includes learning relaxation techniques, visualisations, circle dances and various forms of massage. The family-related topics discussed during the programme include: family as a system, stages of family development, the presence of a disabled child and his or her functioning within the family, depression as a reaction to the loss of an expected healthy child, support and limits in the family, relation between parents in a family with a disabled child, stress in the family. The work in the group also included the issues of self-development: assertive communication, negotiation, handling conflicts, recognizing one’s own needs, realization of the needs in the situation of providing round-the-clock care, stress management, developing interest (classes of felt-jewellery making took place during the programme), planning one’s own activity. The meetings ended with a two-day trip to Spytkowice with a rich programme of physical recreation and messages. The paper also contains description of the results and the impact of the meeting of current day-to-day functioning of the mothers.