Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, Orange County, Inc.
PROGRAMS
In-Person and Virtual Support Groups
Group Facilitators have completed training and are experienced with leading groups. Offering a safe and confidential environment, our groups enable participants to share their experiences with their mood disorder and receive supportive feedback. Participants are able to develop new coping skills and recovery strategies for their mood disorders. Diverse support groups are offered. We have groups in English and Vietnamese. We are recruiting new Facilitators to lead our Spanish Group. A group for families and friends only is also offered.
We have been tracking the attendance of our virtual support groups. For the calendar year 2022, we had 420 participants per month on average in our virtual support groups.
In our "Wellness at Work" virtual support group, we offered support to participants who were working or who were searching for work. We focused
on developing coping skills to manage job-related stress. Ideas for workplace accommodations were presented.
Here are some of our outcomes: A pre-post survey was administered to measure the effectiveness of the group. After one year of participating in the group, we found that 80% strongly agreed and 20% agreed that they had learned effective coping skills to manage job-related stress or the stress of being unemployed.
An additional outcome is that 60% of participants strongly agreed and 40% agreed that their problem-solving skills had improved as a result of "Wellness at Work."
One hundred percent of participants strongly agreed that "Wellness at Work" was helpful.
Additionally, 80% of participants strongly agreed and 20% agreed that they had learned about some new workplace accommodations.
Educational Meetings
In-person Educational Meetings have been offered at Saint Joseph Hospital before COVID-19. For ten months each year, we offered free presentations by psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, nutritionists, attorneys, ministers, clients/patients with mental health conditions, and family members. The meetings are free and open to the public. To meet the needs of our community during COVID-19, while still being safe and healthy, we began offering virtual Zoom Educational Meetings. Attendance has been very strong. There are no transportation barriers to attending the groups, as they are virtual. We have recently been invited back to resume all of our programs at St. Joseph Hospital.
The last meeting we hosted was "Bipolar Disorders: New Horizons in Psychiatric Research, New Hopeful Treatment Options." Dr. Thomas Okamoto presented this topic. Attendance was outstanding for this meeting. We had 51 participants in the meeting.
DBSA OC Bipolar Resource Center
Our Resource Center is located at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange. St. Joseph has generously donated office space to us. We do not have to fund rent. Pre-COVID, the Resource Center was staffed by volunteers who help visitors check out books and help callers with community resources. Visitors can check out books for free. We also have copies of our newsletter available, listings of our support groups, and program literature and brochures from local community resources. If a visitor or caller is distressed, our volunteers are able to speak with them as long as necessary. We do not place a time limit on visits or phone calls. If we encounter an individual in crisis, we have licensed mental health professionals in the office near us. We can call on them to intervene in crisis situations. Saint Joseph Hospital has recently invited us back to resume all of our programs. We are recruiting additional volunteers to staff the Resource Center.
Due to the onset of Covid-19 in March of 2020, we were unable to use our Resource Center because of its location in a hospital. Saint Joseph Hospital has recently invited us back to open the Resource Center. We currently answer emails off of our info@dbsaoc.org account and have volunteers answering the phones three days a week.
CONTACT
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, Orange County, Inc.
6031 Cortez Drive
Huntington Beach, California 92647
Phone: 714-292-7015