Learn More:Living Independently in Neighborhood Communities
A Safety Net for Women as They Age
The Supportive Older Women’s Network (SOWN®) was launched in 1984 as a non-profit agency, dedicated to helping women survive and cope with some of the complex issues of aging.
SOWN provides a crucial safety net. It remains one of the only organizations in the country exclusively devoted to serving the special needs of women as they age.
SOWN has pioneered a unique network of mutual support groups facilitated by trained professionals that has become a national model. Beyond its core services, the organization, based in the Philadelphia region, has also developed innovative, community-based programs that have won wide recognition.
More importantly, ongoing research demonstrates that the model of social support pioneered by SOWN offers significant benefits to the emotional and physical well-being of older women.
“A support group may be as effective as costly medical treatment. Simply put, having someone to talk to is very powerful medicine.”
— Journal of American Medical Association, January 1992
Since its beginning, SOWN has brought thousands of older women together in support groups in neighborhoods and senior residential settings across Southeastern Pennsylvania. SOWN has launched hundreds of support groups tailored to the needs of racially-diverse, isolated, and frail older women.
SOWN members form enduring connections. Nearly 85 percent of SOWN groups continue to meet for more than ten years. Groups meet weekly under the guidance of a SOWN professional who helps foster ongoing leadership from within the group.
Through participation, SOWN members learn to:
- solve common problems
- share their joys and sorrows
- try out new coping skills to manage changes and losses
- feel more in control of their lives
- seek out and access new resources
- support one another through hardships
Forty support groups meet weekly throughout Philadelphia
Telephone Support Groups for Homebound Older Women
Many older women suffer from chronic health conditions that make it impossible to leave home. With mobility curtailed, these women feel lonely, isolated, overwhelmed, and forgotten. SOWN has responded to this need by developing weekly telephone support groups led by a SOWN professional. Telephone support groups make a dramatic difference. Older women connect on a personal level, regardless of their disabilities and challenges. They encourage and support one another while bringing renewed meaning and dignity back to their lives.
Telephone Support Groups for Caregivers
Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s Disease or other chronic illness can be a 24-hour a day job that leaves little time for caregivers to connect with others or take time for themselves. Caregivers often become overwhelmed and depleted. In these specially designed SOWN telephone support groups, caregivers facing these unique challenges can receive valuable peer support, helpful ideas, resource information, and encouragement — without having to leave home.
“Caring for someone with Alzheimer's is a long lonely road. The group became a lifeline, and SOWN staff became friends who could finish my sentences for me and understand my problems like no others could.” — Pat
