The Center for Chronic Illness offers free, professionally-facilitated support groups for those impacted by ongoing health challenges, such as autoimmune diseases, rare diseases, invisible illnesses, and various types of disability. The goal of our programs is to promote well-being and decrease isolation for those impacted by these health challenges. We typically offer these programs in person and via the web, however, due to the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, our in-person groups are unable to meet, and our chronic illness community is becoming even more isolated due to social distancing and stay at home measures. We have transitioned some of our in-person groups to the web and needed some extra funds to be able to do this, including our Living with Chronic Illness, our Rare Chronic Illness, our Living Mindfully with Chronic Illness, and our Parenting Chronic Illness groups to the web. We are using our current web-based platform, Support Groups Central, to host these programs to the web. The specific platform we use allows for real time meetings and confidential sharing of private health information, which makes it a better option than Skype, Google Hangouts, Zoom, etc, All of our support groups are facilitated by licensed mental health professionals, who provide safe and compassionate spaces for those who join our programs and teach strategies for healthier coping.

The chronic illness community needs this support now more than ever. Awesome Disability's support is allowing us to continue in our mission of providing emotional support and decreasing isolation for the chronic illness community and help so many who are currently isolated due to both living with chronic illness and the current pandemic. Thank you again, Awesome Disability, for granting us this award!

What our grantee is saying: "The Center for Chronic Illness is excited to be chosen for the April 2020 Awesome Disability Grant! This award will go toward our web-based support group programs. We are grateful for the opportunity to continue supporting those who are isolated in the chronic illness community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you, Awesome Disability!"