Download Full Report - http://www.ghsouthern.org.au/selfhelp/0405%20selfhelp%20report.pdf

Introduction

The Self-Help Project was part of the Community Education (CE) plan for 2004/2005. Gambler’s Help Southern (GHS) acknowledges that the majority of people experiencing gambling-related problems in the Southern Metropolitan Regions (SMR) do not seek professional help for their gambling, either from GHS or through other means. There are many reasons for this, including the desire to “do something themselves”, ambivalence about/negative perceptions of counselling and practical barriers relating to service locations and operating hours.

Although the promotion of counselling remains a function of CE, there was an imperative for GHS to service the non-client population who make up the majority of people with gambling problems. This need was not only driven by this population’s preference for non-counselling interventions, but also by the program’s existing waiting lists which made the promotion of counselling services problematic.

There were two parts to the project:

Part 1 project involved a pilot media campaign in three local newspapers, to test messages advertising self-help information. Current Gambler’s Help and GHS material was supplied. It was envisaged that aspects of the self-help information would be useful for people in different “Stages of Change”[1], in particular the Contemplation stage and the Determination stage. The self-help information provided may also have functioned as a “soft introduction” to counselling and other support services, leading to contact with them in the future, although this was not a primary objective.

Part 2 of the project (yet to be completed) will involve a review of gambling self-help literature and recommendations for further development of GHS self-help resources.

Key questions will be:

1. What changes or additions to existing GHS self-help resources should be made?

a. What gambling-specific self-help resources/strategies (GHS and other) are

    available for gamblers and for affected others?

b. What self-help materials/strategies for other issues or relating to “change”   

in the broadest sense, are available which might be applied to gambling?

2. What research has been conducted into the efficacy of self-help resources for gambling or for other issues?