TEAMS began as The Support Group Training Project (SGTP) - a private, non-profit agency which provided training, consultation and technical assistance to professionals, para-professionals and other community members in the organization and facilitation of peer support groups since 1977.

Co-founded by two single mothers, the Project originally provided free, facilitated, twelve-week support groups for pregnant single women and single mothers of infants. From this early base in proviing mother support, the SGTP eventually offered diverse support group facilitator trainings throughout the United States. The SGTP developed an approach to support groups which addresses the survival needs of culturally, racially, and economically diverse people. Approximately 75% of the groups organized by those trained by the SGTP were by and for people of color, or for people living on low incomes. Examples of such groups include those for African American parents working to stop violence in a housing project, Korean battered women, Native American pregnant teenagers, Chinese and Central American immigrant high school students, Spanish-speaking service providers, a union of people who are homeless and unemployed autoworkers in Michigan.

Over 20 years, key accomplishments of the Support Group Training Project included:

• Training over 500 perinatal service providers in California and Oregon to offer support groups for more than 5000 high risk pregnant women and new parents. The groups were very successful and were proven to reduce the incidence of low birth-weight babies being born to women who attended. A national dissemination of this model was sponsored by the federal Health Care Finance Administration.
  
• Developing more than 35 support groups by and for refugees from the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala who were living in San Francisco.
  
• Working for 6 years with community-based agencies in Central America, designing, writing and field-testing a curriculum on support for new mothers in collaboration with Wellstart International. This curriculum was promoted by the Pan American Health Organization for dissemination throughout Latin America.
  
• Developing support groups for high-risk youth, and for the people who care for them, in Southern Alameda County. This program was followed by a Training of Trainers for youth support groups throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
  
• Developing support groups in San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties, in collaboration with the local county foster parent associations.
  
• Working to reduce staff turnover at perinatal substance abuse pilot sites throughout California through a program of team building trainings and staff peer support funded through the State of California Department of Health.

The Support Group Training Project approach to support groups.

A support group, as we define it, is a small group of peers, facilitated ideally by a team of co-facilitators, who meet on a voluntary basis to support one another in ways which the members define. The support offered takes many forms, including information, practical help, feedback, active listening, and emotional support.

Support groups are different from therapy and educational groups, although they include elements of both. Members of the group define their own needs, and knowledge based on the members' direct experiences is highly valued. The groups are not based on problems, but rather on common life situations. While participants in support groups help one another tackle extremely complex problems, there is also a clear value on celebration, growth, and learning. People join and benefit from support groups as much as for what they give as for what they receive.

Our approach to support groups:

• Models a group structure which is extremely easy to learn, but which is almost infinitely flexible and adaptable.
  
• Has been especially successful with people with low-incomes, Black, Latinas, teen parents, and people who are often left out of support group programs.
  
• Teaches explicit skills in combining support and education.
  
• Emphasizes the importance of recognizing and appreciating differences. Because of this approach, our groups include people with very different perspectives and levels of participation.
  
• Demonstrates that people have both needs and skills, a fact which is a powerful basis for their working together.