COMBINING PROFESSIONAL AND SELF-HELP GROUP INTERVENTION - COLLABORATION IN CO-LEADERSHIP

The Elders Health Program established a treatment program for chemical ly dependent seniors using a peer and professional co-leadership appro ach. This paper describes the development of this treatment approach, and the results. With chemically dependent seniors, the peer co-leader provided a role model by offering not only hope and optimism, but als o ideas to assist them with maintaining abstinence. The E.H.P. experie nce showed that peer co-leadership was effective when working with che mically dependent seniors.