Online Peer Group Chat// Lessons In Lockdown// Thursday 12th August, 7PM-8:30Pm AEST

sorry, I'm not up to setting up passwords and trying to find some chat area, thought it was just a normal group @Arizona

Me too @TAB

I have to go to the supermarket and get some chocolate.

Thank you for tagging me.

well sorry it didnt turn into anything @Arizona I had chocolate this afternoon lol

Thankyou @Former-Member 😷 from your Clawde 😳

Clawde donated 10 dollars I know it's not a lot but I have done my best in the dollar amount for today, I just don't understand why we have to have a different Alias when this is promised as our anomity is assured

why has it been and is different from the Sane website is our guarantee of us all staying private is it still is @Former-Member .?

Hello@Clawde & @TideisTurning , @TAB , @Arizona , @Former-Member , @Oaktree , @Sophia1

Thank you guys for the "Online Peer Group Chat" suggestion and, in particular @Clawde's rally to attend. Unfortunately, I was a long way from home at the time of the session. However, I have a few thoughts to offer.

The issue of difficulty in accessing the various "Online Peer Group Chat" sessions has been reported by several members over the past few months. Some members have reported that the difficulties have left them feeling excluded from some of the chat sessions, in which they would like to have been included. Some have reported that they were not only unable to access chat sessions as Active Participants, but not as Guest Members either.

I have written a fairly detailed "memo" that consititutes a request for this issue, among others, to be addressed.

It seems that access, by members, to these sessions, is so infrequent that when someone endeavours to rally a gathering, as @Clawde has done this evening, very few, if any of the people invited, knew, if they could have done anyway, how to access the session. As a result, questions are raised, whether well-founded or otherwise, as to the legitimacy of the format and hence the information offered.

This is not only a loss to forum members, in terms of valuable information distribution and sharing, but a loss to the forum as a whole, with respect to informed use and extent of use of the forum functions. Unfortunately, members may not be accessing the full range of forum functions because of artificial "barriers to access".

For Now, Best Wishes

@HenryX

Hey everyone. I definetley hear you with the frustrations on the online platform and I want to acknowledge that this is an ongoing issue that we are aware of.

As the OPG was trialed as a pilot program we are still working through some growing pains. Thank you to those who have attended the groups in the past and perseversed, and thank you everyone for your feedback. Everytime our community provides us with feedback we listen, as we do want to make these spaces as accessible and enjoyable as possible. Thanks again!

Hello forum and @HenryX who has put a lot of time and effort into providing feedback to make life easier for your forum members.

I am of the same opinion that having logged onto a forum where I have a user name and password I do not want to create another username and password to attempt to be part of a chat?

Why is this a different form to the other discussions where we have had guest speakers?

I am so tired of having to ask questions or justify my not understanding in the real world and feel exacerbated further on a forum offering support.

I feel that "mental health forum" therefore, varying states of mind, symptoms has been overlooked.

Could a new style of interraction be trialed and tested in the background between peer support workers, moderators, technical staff, even community guides asked firstly if they would like to be part of the experimenting stage.

This would alleviate the added burden on those of us who are already worn out, extremely sensitive, in high alert mode and want life to be simpler.

An idea........not a criticism............feedback to help bring about change..........

Sophia1

Hi @Sophia1 🙂

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to pass on your thoughts. We know that this not only means you're concerned about the best interests of the community, but also that you're experiencing the frustration that a number of people have been, regarding sign-ins - as we've mentioned, the groups were adopted as a pilot service. This means we utilised a test-and-learn approach to develop this service, but this also means that we're always looking at continuously improving. Launching that pilot itself was one way we sought to improve the experiences of people that wanted a group chat space.

As you've mentioned, our forum Topic Tuesdays (with our guest speakers) are easy to access as you just navigate to the TT page. This isn't the case with the groups because they're a separate service to the forums, and to be able to achieve instant chat, we've had to use an instant-chat platform.

In the future we will be exploring options that enable single-sign-on, but we can't promise any dates for that just yet. We will also be looking for an instant-chat platform that's more user-friendly!

So I entirely acknowledge that it's not in it's ideal-state right now, and thank you for your patience regardless, but bear with us as we continue to refine our processes. The group will continue to be offered, so if you'd like, please email us at peersupport@sane.org and we can work with you to set up your account so it's easy for you to jump onto a group in future.

Take care,

Pipinya 🌿