Subject: Where Parents Can Go For Help
Date: Published: 3/16/92 (38 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Where Parents Can Go For Help

    Most major cities and suburban areas offer a wide array of
 services to people with AIDS, but there are far fewer support
 services for their parents.
    The need is pressing.  "There are people who go to great
 lengths to support their son or daughter, and endure
 tremendous self-imposed isolation in the process," says Ann
 Showalter, who worked at the AIDS Pastoral Care Network in
 Chicago.
    Parents' "first reaction often is that they're scared,"
 says Rose Dinolfo, who is active in the White Plains, N. Y.,
 chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.  Parents
 sometimes shy away from support services because "they are
 dealing with their own guilt" over how life turned out for
 their children, she says.
    Support groups for fathers are rare.  "The fathers have not
 shown too much interest in having a group.  Maybe it's the
 macho image they're supposed to have," says Beverly Ritter,
 who took care of her sick daughter and now coordinates a
 mothers' group in New York City.
    But a growing number of areas are responding to the need.
 For information about organizations that offer support groups
 in various areas of the country, call the National AIDS
 Clearing House (800) 458-5231 or the National AIDS Hotline
 (800) 342-2437.
    (See related story:  "Love Story:  How a Father and Son
 Discovered Each Other in the Shadow of AIDS --- Duncan
 Henderson Nursed Paul, Challenged Doctors and Surprised His
 Family -- It's `Just What Parents Do'" -- WSJ March 16, 1992)

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the
 personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the
 hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering
 from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]