Research reflects what these clinicians already know. A 2022 study published in Home Healthcare Now found that more than 60 percent of home health nurses experience moderate to high levels of burnout, driven by workload intensity, emotional strain, and professional isolation. These are not marginal challenges; they are structural features of the job as it is currently designed.
Many participants shared that before joining GPS support groups, they rarely had structured opportunities to talk openly with colleagues about the emotional impact of their work. Unfortunately, this experience isn’t unusual. In many helping professions, the expectation is to stay composed and move on to the next task.
Recently, MASStrong partnered with New England Life Care (NELC) to offer a structured GPS support group for their home infusion nurses. Their responses to post-support group surveys tell a powerful story about what happens when caregivers are given space to slow down and connect.
By Liz Friedman, Co-Founder and CEO of GPS Group Peer Support Doulas —trained professionals who provide physical, emotional, and informational support before, during and shortly after childbirth— hold some of the most intimate, emotionally charged moments of a person’s life. They walk into labor and delivery rooms where joy, fear, trauma, power, and vulnerability collide,…
Loneliness is a silent struggle that affects countless individuals every day. It can have a profound impact on mental health, leading to increased feelings of sadness, stress, and isolation. However, there is a powerful antidote to loneliness: connection. Peer support groups can offer a way for individuals to break free from isolation and find comfort, healing, and understanding.
One of the most significant aspects of GPS is the ability to implement it in individual populations, tailoring the model to meet the needs of the community. Participants in our Spanish training emphasized that the best adaptations were not changes to GPS itself, but shifts in tone, pacing, and cultural voice.
Some people have a way of making you feel settled the moment they enter the room. Not because they have all the answers, but because they are fully there. Listening. Breathing with you. Holding space without judgment. That is the kind of presence Jigyna Patel brings to every support group she facilitates, trains, and coaches. And it is the same presence that first drew her to GPS.
Across behavioral health, public health, homelessness services, recovery programs, and community-based care, frontline workers are carrying a level of emotional and structural strain that no training program ever prepared them for.
We talk often about burnout among clinicians, case managers, outreach workers, and direct service staff. But there’s a group we don’t talk about nearly enough: The supervisors who hold all of them.
Nursing is a profession built on care, and is one that often asks people to carry enormous emotional, ethical, and relational weight. For nurses navigating recovery from substance use disorder, that weight can be compounded by stigma, fear, and isolation.
When people work in recovery, peer support, and community care, they often spend their days holding space for others. But where do they go to pause, reflect, and be supported?
Recently, staff from Choice Recovery Coaching from Greenfield, MA came together for a focus group to share their experiences with GPS training and GPS support groups. What emerged was a powerful picture of connection, safety, and healing, not just for individuals in recovery, but for the people who support recovery every day.
