Conflict & Learning - Growing Through Problems!

Hello My Dear 7 Cups Community,

Over the past month, it has become clear that there are some discrepancies in our training and onboarding processes. This came to light when a conflict arose within one of our subcommunities. We have been working hard to support all those involved and we are very sorry for any miscommunications that have arisen as a result.

Moving forward all subcommunity based topic trainings will be approved by a member of the community management staff - not just to ensure quality, but to make sure that there is alignment across the entire subcom and all efforts & processes going on in the community. Leaders are encouraged and welcome to write their own trainings; we just ask that they are approved by staff. Additionally, each community is allotted one topic based training - this training should be used for onboarding every member of the team from group support, to forums and every role in between. Additional questions or information for teens can be added to this one training as needed.

Additionally, we identified the following problems that wed like to proactively resolve -

Problems -

1. What does the Support Team Leader do vs Forum Mentors vs CMLs? And how are leaders selected for each of these roles?

2. Onboarding trainings and processes for group support. The process should be unified for all subcommunities. There may have been a time when this was not true, but we aim to make this true in the future to ensure consistency.

Over the next few weeks and months we will be working to address these problems head on. Wed love your ideas, feedback and suggestions. These are complex, hard problems to solve, its not going to be easy. This is why we need to work together.

Learning and growing through problems!

When conflicts arise, which is a natural occurrence in any community, its okay to feel frustrated and its okay to feel angry. I totally understand having that reaction to difficult situations. However, as you all know, our values as a community are paramount. We value professionalism, kindness and growing through feedback and problems. In particular, we ask our volunteer leaders to embody and live by these qualities. It is not always easy and sometimes we have mess-ups. That is okay! But when this happens, how you as a leader react is vital.

As leaders, volunteers, friends, listeners, members...etc., it is incredibly important, no matter your role in the community, that we practice self-reflection. Working to recognize our own mistakes is another pathway to grow through problems! And most importantly, its one of our values at 7 Cups.

I am glad that we have the opportunity to grow through our problems. Problems are a great way for us to evolve our system and make it better. That is the goal here.

TLDR -

In conclusion, Id like to acknowledge some of the problems recognized and let everyone know we are proactively trying to tighten things up and make stronger more cohesive systems and protocol. I apologize for not doing this sooner. Additionally, I want to encourage you all to treat one another with kindness and professionalism. We are all on the same team. Take any time you need to practice self-care and reply / communicate to your peers when you are feeling calm. It can be very hard to communicate via text, so at times extra patience is needed.

One helpful resource (that is still in the works) is being created by our forum Ambassadors @Anomalia @MonBon & @MelAllyouneedislove. They are writing detailed threads on each guideline here. If you are every unsure on how to communicate in the forums, I encourage you to check this space out. There are examples and specific notes on the context of each guideline - its very helpful!

Thank you all for reading this! I am very open to hearing your feedback so I can grow and learn further. Share your anonymous feedback here.