January 2022 Community Update!

Dear Community,

I hope you all are well. We were just talking about how quickly this month has gone by. It’ll be warming up for many of us before we know it.

I’m also encouraged to think that we may be transitioning from the pandemic stage to the endemic stage where covid is something we adapt to and learn to collectively navigate. I just dug up the first email I received from Dr. Adama of the Wuhan Warriors Network. That was in early February 2020. Here we are almost 2 years later. The world has changed much more than I would have imagined 2 years ago.

I’m thankful for all of the support you all provided through covid. For a period of many months, our messages were up over 60% per day. We came together as a community and extended support to people all around the globe. Thank you for showing up and helping people process loss, suffering, and uncertainty.

On a more positive note, I’m also really happy to see the feedback process working so well. @kyleborg just pinged me this morning, after the hot cocoa party (shout out to EmotionalTalker and Raven!) about #4 below. I asked if they had submitted it on the form and said I’d check with H about it tomorrow. I then read the below post and I see that it is already slated in. That was great to see.

I appreciate all of you and I’m thankful for the work you do!

Glen

Heather (H)

Hey, hey!

I am happy to announce we highlighted 3 leaders this month under our Leadership Spotlight! @anotherfrenchtoastclub @QuietMagic and @amiablePeace77

If you’d like to nominate someone for their great leadership, please fill out this form!

Every month I review submissions to our Feedback form and present you all with an overview of the high level items we are able to action. Here’s some highlights from your suggestions:

1. The progress bar for the member side disappeared with the implementation of the feed. This will be restored.

2. We will be adding new flags to the forum moderation tool as well as a description box to add details.

3. Autism has been added as a chat topic.

4. Will be adding an “x is typing” function to the group rooms on site.

5. Long term goal, but we’re working on ways to improve our blocking and subsequent reporting process. We will keep you posted on what we come up with.

Anything not mentioned tech-wise is not possible at this time. For smaller items, or items I am unclear on, I have been reaching out individually. If you want to inquire about something you submitted, feel free to drop me an email heather.nelson@7cups.com

Laiba

In Academy news, we have been working on improving trainee/intern experience. We updated the academy onboarding process and it now requires that trainees/interns respond to the acceptance email before their start date to be considered accepted. We launched a trainee badge update, trainees/Interns will now be assigned the program specific trainee badge and academy trainee badge on their start date. Additionally, orientation sessions were launched to further support new trainees/interns. We have also launched onboarding and trainee experience surveys to get a better understanding of our trainee/intern needs.

Moreover, the academy celebrated one year with fun filled AMA and group sessions hosted by academy leaders and forum events. The Content Development and Marketing program also completed one year in the same month and celebrated with events. Lastly, we have been consistently adding academy related content to our social media channels.

Obs

In the Group Support news, we were working on a bunch of updates & ideas that we will be announcing soon. The hope is that it will help us offer better support and encouragement to share and support each other. Similarly, in the Listener Chatroom news as well, based on the feedback we were working on a few ideas.

Other than that, here are key updates that we hope you may find helpful. Please check them out here for more information on it.

• Help Us Build a Group Support FAQ: An effort to update our FAQs page.

• Group Support Resources Library : Easy Navigation

• Updates on Group Support & Neuro-diverse Survey

• Addition of Community Service Model to Behavioral Points System

• Listener-powered Community Discussions

• Verified Listener Program: New Feedback Process & more

• And, Veteran & HealthCare Workers Space

(All texts in blue color are hyperlinked and clickable. For more details on each update, please click them.)

We are also reviewing the feedback from both Group Support and Chat room leaders to provide better support and resources in order to empower them in their respective roles.

Thank you to the entire community, group support leader and chatroom leaders for their dedicated efforts, commitments, thoughts, ideas and suggestions to improve and strengthen the chatrooms, VL Program & Safety.

CheeryMango

Greetings everyone!

January has been a busy but productive month for the subcommunities. Firstly, I am happy to be a part of the admin team to provide better support to the subcommunities here on 7cups. You can find out my formal introduction and what I can assist with in the community.

From the leadership aspect of the subcommunities, we’ve onboarded @Azalea98 as our newest Subcommunity Ambassador. She will be working with myself and others leaders to help strengthen and improve the leadership quality of our subcommunity leaders. We also welcomed 5 Forum Supporters, 3 Community Mentors/Teen Stars and 4 Community Mentor Leaders. You can congratulate them here. If you are interested in joining a role in the subcommunities, view the Subcommunity Leadership Roles Masterpost and consider applying to help us support teams that are in need of leaders. In leadership roles, we are seeing a growing need for more accountability. Our leaders will be held more accountable in February as we implement initiatives designed to ensure that everyone is following the rules and getting the proper support.

In forum engagement and activity, we have hosted events such as Hobby Month, Mental Wellness and Mentoring Month among others. A massive thank you to our leaders, listeners and members of the community for making these events possible! Stay tuned for what events we host for the community in February. Earlier this month, we launched a survey for you all to leave your feedback and suggestions on how we can improve the subcommunities (leadership and forums). An update on the results will be given in the coming days.

Finally, we started reorganizing our forums into sub-communities to make it easier for users to find support for specific topics. Restructuring of the forums included removing, merging, and archiving posts. This project would not have been possible without the assistance of @theriverissinging. More updates will be provided regarding the forums in addition to these restructures.

Thank you for your hard work, ambassadors, leaders, and members in subcommunities! I look forward to growing strong alongside you!

SoulfullyAButterfly

We started off the New Year with an amazing compilation of the community’s reflections of the past year and what words we will hold on to during 2022 - see the world “cup” results here!

The content world has started strong with a new role addition - we welcomed the first group of Marketing Assistants earlier this month and are looking forward to growing this team to support our social media presence and efforts. Our Lightship team on Twitter has also recently announced updated requirements for the team to help enhance the effectiveness and support provided.

The content domain is all set to have our first group of Project Agents focusing on editorial support - I am looking forward to announcing the selected leaders and supporting them starting next month.

I have also been supporting the H Prize and have hosted several group chats as well as forum-based support - if you are interested in submitting a growth path for the H Prize please remember to use the Final Submission Form so that we can promote your submission. For any support needs please feel welcome to PM me.

Our translation projects are also still up for applications - please read the most recent Help Wanted post here.

EvelyneRose

We have been doing a revamp of our Anonymous Evaluations Team. We will be using the data gleaned to help further educational outreach on the site and improve quality by educating on the most pressing issues. We hope to increase our reach as we expand into roles in the future, but for now we are continuing just with listeners. Want to join? Please apply here!

The Listener Coaching Team has been focusing on helping listeners with their skills and continuing a robust program. They have exceeded their monthly goals and we look forward to seeing what they do next!

I also created a survey to assess why people volunteer and why they stay here in this community. Many people have said they are passionate about helping and giving back! It is so good that we have so many supportive and wonderful listeners here to create a space where people don’t feel alone. Want to fill out the survey? Click here!