The Wellness Community

I just perused another great site. This one creates a community for cancer patients and their caregivers. It's called the Wellness Community. I've never heard of them before. This is the scoop from their website: "Founded in 1982, The Wellness Community is an international non-profit organization dedicated to providing free support, education and hope to people with cancer and their loved ones." They have both on-line and physical support groups with professional staff.

They have public discussion boards - free and easy to join - that are very similar to most social networking discussion boards. They also have on-line support groups that meet via phone and chat for 90 minutes/week. Trained facilitators lead these groups of 8-10 people. Other great features include a relaxation meditation that you can download, cooking and nutrition information, and a spanish version of the site.

Navigation on the site is fairly intuitive. The only warning I have is that the social media and on-line support "join" button is only available from the home page. I'm sure they will re-design the site so that if you look at the "about" page you will be able to jump back to the on-line community and join but for now, don't panic, just click on the logo in the upper left corner of the page. That takes you home where you can sign in.