The helping community: issues in the evaluation of a preventive intervention to promote informal helping

This report addresses conceptual and practical problems in evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention which used a pyramid training model for improving helping skills for informal helpers in two rural communities. Against a background for a study of help-giving and help-seeking patterns, the transmission of helping skills from professional to community trainers to local helpers was studied. Impacts of the intervention on other aspects of the community are reported.