What if...?

Hi @FutureTeacher301! This is something that is brought up a lot, especially in group support chats when people have started making friends, and it's a tough one to answer! Because on one hand, it would be awesome if members who're building strong connections with other members could have a way to expand that friendship. On the other hand, however, there would be a massive amount of risk involved if members could have private 1-on-1 chats.

That's not to say that there aren't tons of members who would use 1-on-1 chats with each other in appropriate and constructive ways, and those are the members I truly wish could have private chats with one another! But there are other users of the site who would abuse 1-on-1 chats with other members, both genuine trolls and members who mean no harm but wind up giving potentionally harmful advice or incorrect information to others or who would want to exchange contact information with other members. The problems that are seen in group support, with members bullying or harrassing others, fights and disagreements breaking out between people, members attempting to give or recieve someone else's contact information, people trying to give well-intentioned but potentionally harmful advice, and the trolls that come to spam, abuse, or belittle others would also be carried over into private 1-on-1 chats. But in a private chat, there would be no moderator to bring the situation under control. Many of the people who visit 7 Cups of Tea looking for support are in fairly vulnerable emotional states and I would be horrified to hear that someone was in a 1-on-1 chat with another member and was abused, taken advantage of, or hurt in some way. We don't want to put anyone in a situation where bullying and harrasment or an even more dangerous situations could easily occur, especially as it would happen where trained indivudals like moderators would have little abilty to help someone who winds up in a difficult situation, as compared to a group chat. Members could be blocked, but they could not be reviewed, which could make a report against bad behavior more difficult to get to the staff that would have to be added to handle them.

I personally see only one difference between listeners and members on this site--listeners have completed active listening training, and members have not. That puts listeners and members in somewhat different roles--a listener is a volunteer giving support, and a member is a user recieving support. That means that the central focus of the site--allowing a user to recieve support through chatting with a trained active listener--can only come about through a 1-on-1 with a listener, not with a fellow member, no matter how kind and compassionate and supportive that member is. A member can certainly still be a source of support to another member, but not all members will be. Not all members have good intentions or would go about applying their good intentions in a positive way, and because a member is here for support, their safety and well-being must be put first. If a member would like to support others in 1-on-1 chats, the best thing for them to do is to become a listener so that they have the training to do so, and a system in place to hold them accountable for unsupportive actions. I know that's frustrating for the members who don't want to become listeners or who are to young too, and I apologize for that. As I said before, I do wish that there could be 1-on-1s for those members making such great connections in group support chats. The trouble is that the potentional benefit is greatly outweighed by the risk.