About the Families for Depression Awareness Online Community

This online community is an exciting new place to help caregivers connect with each other for mutual support and learning.

This “live” community is designed to fill a critical need for the family members, friends, spouses or significant others who live and care for individuals with depression or bipolar disorder. Stigma and secrecy still characterizes these conditions, and people often feel most comfortable researching topics and contacting other individuals in similar circumstances if they can do so anonymously.

This is a safe way to do both, since individuals are only identified by their e-mail address, which can be constructed to protect their identity.

We offer two discussion forums or discussion boards: one on depression and the other on bipolar disorder.

• These forums will be moderated for content, questions and overall continuity of discussions.
• No post will go unanswered for over 48 business hours.
• If a volunteer moderator is not available, one of our staff will answer the posting if no one else does.
• The discussion boards will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Your safety and support are our main concerns. We expect people to be polite and will remove anyone who solicits, bullies or posts inappropriate language.

Families for Depression Awareness will be managing this site and its contents, including our discussion forums.