A series of 10 educational sessions to help people who have a hoarding disorder begins Tuesday.

The free sessions, entitled HOPE Workshop, will be held at Abrams Public Health Center, 3950 S. Country Club Road, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. each Tuesday through Oct. 30, organizers said. Participants must register.

Facilitators who will lead the sessions include Jennifer Caragan of the Pima Council on Aging, Lisa O’Neill of the University of Arizona Center on Aging and Dr. Kathryn Sanderlin of the UA Department of Psychiatry.

In 2012, the Southern Arizona Hoarding Task Force was founded to educate health-care providers, social workers, case managers and law enforcement agencies about the disorder.

About 19 million, or 6 percent of the population in the United States, suffer from hoarding, studies show.

The workshops are aimed to help hoarders manage their behaviors, learn skills to reduce the clutter and make connections with others.

Experts say hoarders often live alone and are isolated, and hoarding, in turn, compounds their isolation. A traumatic event, such as a divorce or a death, may cause an impulse to hoard, or it can begin after a person develops dementia.

For more information about the sessions, contact O’Neill at loneill@aging.arizona.edu or Caragan at jcaragan@pcoa.org

Contact reporter Carmen Duarte at cduarte@tucson.com or 573-4104. On Twitter: @cduartestar

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