The Support Group Program of the Hepatitis Education Project has been developed to help improve the quality and increase the number of hepatitis C support groups in the Pacific Northwest region. The program is a result of a long development process, focused heavily on the needs of patients and support group leaders. We conducted surveys of support group leaders to determine their needs and held conferences with those same leaders to provide opportunities for comment and discussion. We talked with patients, providers, health officials, board members and others to get community input.

As a result, we developed a design for a new approach to hepatitis C support groups. Then we developed grant proposals to obtain funding for our ideas and approached funding agencies for support. Funding has been provided by the Seattle Foundation and the Nesholm Foundation, along with unrestricted educational grants from the Roche, Schering-Plough, and GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical companies. We are deeply grateful to these organizations for their support of this important work.

For a detailed discussion of the program design, see Model Support Group Proposal. It will open in a PDF document. CLICK HERE