This peer led group provides education and support for family, friends, and people with Down Syndrome of any age. One of their special programs in a camp for teens with DS. You can click here to see their web site or click here to e-mail the president any general questions.  If you prefer, you may also call their voice mail at 704/536-2163 anytime anyday for information about their very educational meetings or their myriad of other activities.

An organization providing a wide variety of support, information, advocacy, and referral for families and friends of people with mental retardation as well as for the folks who have mentally retardation themselves.  For details or to ask any question, call 704/332-4535 weekdays 9-5.  You can also click here to see their web site.  (Click for overview of Mental Retardation resources.)

This service provides comprehensive data and referral assistance for nonprofit and government resources in the NC counties of Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Union, and Anson counties and in or near the city of Mooresville, NC.  If you are calling on a landline or residential phone in one of those counties, dial 2-1-1.  If that fails, if you are calling on a cell phone, or if you are calling from anywhere else in NC, call 866/744-7778.  For calls from out of NC, use their local number of 704/377-1100. Although they are open 24 hours a day, you may wish to call weekdays from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. for non-emergency questions.

The friendly staff at this full service library can help you research any medical topic using their up-to-date computers, databases, journals and books.  No previous research experience or medical knowledge is required. Click here for details or call them at 704-384-6393.

MedLinePlus

This service of the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health is one of the better one-stop shops for beginning your search on the internet for medical information.  For those of you who live in Mecklenburg and Union counties in NC, we recommend that you contact the Health Library for more personal assistance from the experts there in searching for reliable medical information. Click here for their details.

Click to link to any of these lists of national groups: 

The Self-Help Sourcebook OnLine Index
The Genetic Alliance
NORD (National Organization for Rare Diseases) Database

Click here to branch to the American Self-Help Clearinghouse listing of toll-free phone numbers for a wide variety of topics.