SNAP Support Group Meeting
2022 Update: Suggested Welcome Message
We welcome you to the [LOCAL AREA/SPECIFIC GROUP] SNAP meeting! We hope you will find the comfort, help, and friendship we have been privileged to enjoy.
SNAP is a grass-roots organization made up of survivors, allies, and advocates. Survivors who connect with SNAP were sexually abused, many as children, by priests, nuns, or other religious leaders. Survivors seek healing and empowerment and find it by joining with other survivors. The only requirement to attend a support group is being a survivor or a support person and being willing to follow the SNAP Ground Rules.
As a result of this abuse, some survivors have chosen to have no association with any religious institution. Some among us have stayed active, to various degrees, within the institution that abused them. Some have left that institution and joined another. There are former and current clerics and religious leaders among us who are themselves survivors.
These religious leaders, like any other survivor who attends our meetings, attend as survivors only, and not in their role of representatives of any institution or organization. At SNAP meetings, we are all peers. SNAP members shed any professional roles and titles when they enter these groups.
Sometimes healing comes simply from listening. It is up to the individual how they wish to participate.
SNAP members share their experiences without judging those of others. SNAP meetings and attendance are confidential. Everything that is said here -- in the meeting and member-to-member -- must be held in the strictest confidence. Only in this way can we feel safe to discuss what is on our hearts and minds.
SNAP Support Group Meeting
2022 Update: Suggested Closing Message
In closing, remember that the opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you want, and leave the rest.
Talk to each other, reason things out with someone else, but let there be no gossip or criticism of one another. The things you heard were spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential. Keep them within the this group and the confines of your mind.
A few special words to those of you who haven't been with us long: whatever your struggles, there are those among us who have had them, too. We aren't perfect. The welcome we give you may not show the warmth we have in our hearts for you. After a while, you'll discover that though you may not like all of us, you'll love us in a very special way -- the way we already love you. We realize that it took as much courage for you to come to this meeting as it did the person next to you. That strength and courage have not gone unnoticed.
We wish you well in this healing journey.
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