GROW in America

GROW IN DETAIL

GROW is an international mental health movement with approximately 650 groups in four different countries, including the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Membership is diverse -- some Growers are recovering from mental illness; others are struggling with problems in living such as stress, anxiety, loneliness, depression, or grief; and others are working on personal growth issues.

The organization was founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1957, by several former mental patients who were first inspired by what AA was doing for Alcoholics. In time, GROW expanded throughout Australia and also to New Zealand, Ireland and Hawaii. It spread to mainland USA in 1978, where its start-up was in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Then, in 1990, with seeding money from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, GROW expanded to several Eastern states. Today GROW is fully developed in Illinois and New Jersey. It also has a small core of groups in Rhode Island.

The founding members of GROW resolved to find their way out of mental illness by sharing their experiences and recording what worked. The result was the gradual evolution of an integrated, four-fold method of recovery and personal growth known as “The Four Essential Features.” These four elements include a network of mutual help groups, a written “Program of Recovery and Personal Growth,” a “Caring and Sharing Community” and an organizational and legal structure.

THE GROUPS: GROW groups are organized, friendly help. Groups follow a standard format or “Group Method,” that enables any member to lead the meeting and ensures that groups are both supportive and productive. Meetings include a personal testimony, problem-solving with assignment of practical tasks, reports on progress, and development of new understandings through mutual education.

THE PROGRAM: GROW members learn new ways of thinking and acting through group participation and by practicing the “GROW Program of Recovery and Personal Growth.” The Program is a written, structured philosophy of life and psychology of mental health for the ordinary person. It was born out of our founders’ resolve to record and keep what worked in their own recovery, and its continued development has been ensured by GROW leaders over the years.

THE COMMUNITY: The true heart and spirit of GROW is its “Caring and Sharing Community,” where members realize weekly group work in their daily lives. The GROW community is based on a network of friendships and developed through diverse social, educational and leadership events.

Friendship is the foundation of the Caring and Sharing Community and the special key to mental health. Our experience of GROW friendship is healing and harmonizing and essential to our recovery and personal growth.

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