Group for Teenagers May Smooth Transitions from High School

Monday, March 07, 2011

If you’re a high school junior or senior with diabetes and you’re planning for college or living on your own, you’re facing some new decisions:

How will you deal with your new roommates? Do you plan to tell your professors about your diabetes? How will you juggle your very different schedule with your diabetes care? How often will you call or text your parents? What will it be like to work and take care of your diabetes at the same time?

These are among the questions that will be addressed in a new discussion and support group for these teenagers that Joslin is launching late this month.

“This will be a fun, low-key group that covers issues that these teens know they have to think about, plus some issues they haven’t yet considered,” says Jessica Markowitz, Ph.D., the Joslin pediatric psychologist who will lead the group.

The group will meet on Tuesday nights (March 29, April 12 and April 26) from 5:00 to 6:15 p.m. at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. The cost is $30 for all three sessions. For more information, contact Dr. Markowitz at jessica.markowitz@joslin.harvard.edu or 617-732-2603.

Dr. Markowitz also will run a group for current college students this summer and a young adult group in the fall.