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SANE Forums - Staff Update!

Unknown userMember06 Nov 2020, 2:39 pm AEDT

SANE Forums - Staff Update!

Hello everyone!

As many of you have noticed, our forums are growing and evolving as we move into our sixth year of supporting people with complex mental health.

The SANE Forums are committed to aligning and supporting the needs of our wonderful community members in getting the most out of this space. We want to continue to focus on building your community, sharing strategies, telling stories and finding positive pathways through our common experience.

In line with this, I would like to share with you some updates regarding our SANE Forums team.

The first update is we have three new Peer Support Workers joining the SANE Forums!

The role of the peer support worker will be to act as both a Moderator and Community Builder all in one. This means that these particular staff members will be able to connect with you at an engaged level by sharing their own stories of complex mental health and wellness. In addition to this, they will be moderating posts and ensuring the forums are maintained as a safe space. The Peer Support Workers will be on at varying shifts through the week (mostly during business hours). So without further delay please give a big warm hello to –

@Former-Member @TideisTurning and @Former-Member !

We have our wonderful @Former-Member online today who will introduce themselves shortly, and then the others will give you a wave early next week 👋👋👋

In more news, some of you may have noticed our wonderful @s-jay has moved on from the Forums team, but thankfully has not moved too far away! S-jay is now in a very exciting position at SANE Australia and will be over-seeing all SANE support service offerings ensuring they align with best practice (with a particular focus on your wonderful forum community!). The good news is we have an incredible replacement who I would like to introduce - @Former-Member ! @Former-Member is our new Forums Lead and is incredibly skilled with an extensive background in mental health. @Former-Member is no doubt excited to meet you all so please feel free to say hey!

And the final update, I will be moving on from SANE Australia to pursue the next step in my career. I will still be around the community right up until November 12th (next Thursday) and will be available to answer any last minute questions or concerns you have 🙂 Our wonderful @Former-Member is still popping in the forums each week, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to either of us if you have any questions about the staff changes via team@saneforums.org

I am mindful there are quite a lot of updates, so I will endeavor to check this thread as often as possible over the course of the next week. To ensure the new peer worker roles make sense, I have put a little descriptor of each forum role below for you, as well as a link again to our guidelines:

Starting with the guidelines:

Community Guidelines help keep the forums space safe, respectful and anonymous. It can be really helpful when you are new to have a read through these so you know a bit more about how the forums work!

Peer Support Workers – the SANE Forums are stoked to be able to introduce peer support workers to the service. Online peer support workers will share their own stories of lived experience of complex mental health in order to support you in your journey. They will ask questions and community build offering their own strategies and advice. Whilst they do also moderate the forums, the core point of difference is a more engaged and in-depth sense of support (similar to a real-life peer support worker!). If you have any questions about moderation, feel free to reach out to the team via team@saneforums.org

Moderators – the forums are moderated 24/7 by mental health professionals. The moderators are excellent, trained legends that read posts and help keep the space safe. Moderators tend not to over-engage in community posting unless they are concerned for a member’s wellbeing or have noted a guideline break. If you have any questions about moderation, feel free to reach out to the team via team@saneforums.org

Community Guides – these are members of the community that add some extra support around the forums for members. The Community Guides are super helpful in welcoming and directing you to useful places where you can meet other members. They do a lot of work to champion the great culture of the SANE forum community.

Community Managers – you might see some of these guys around from time to time! The Community Managers will collaborate and connect with the community in all kinds of ways. This includes running events, asking for your feedback, starting interesting new threads and helping to support members and moderators to maintain the awesome culture of this space. They will help to inform you about guidelines and suggest ways for you to get the most out of your forum experience.

See you around the forums! ❤️

Nashy

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In response to: SANE Forums - Staff Update!

Unknown userMember19 Nov 2020, 1:06 pm AEDT

Re: SANE Forums - Staff Update!

Hi @Sophia1, thank you for writing

First, I’m sorry that my post impacted you in that way. Even though it was not at all my intention to single you out or discourage you from speaking, I understand from your post that this was the effect it had on you, regardless.

If it helps to know, my intention was only to respond to a point you'd raised, which I don’t believe anyone else did, about lived experience in the new peer support staff. There was no judgement in where I was coming from with this.

My interpretation of your initial post was that existing staff didn’t necessarily have lived experience, which I wanted to clarify for the community, although I should have clarified if this is what you had meant first.

Thank you for your honesty, please do continue to speak up, and I hope you can continue to feel safe on the forums.

Girasole

In response to: Re: SANE Forums - Staff Update!

Sophia1Senior Contributor20 Nov 2020, 6:41 pm AEDT

Re: SANE Forums - Staff Update!

Thank you for replying to my post @Former-Member

@Former-Member wrote:
Hi @Sophia1, thank you for writing

First, I’m sorry that my post impacted you in that way. Even though it was not at all my intention to single you out or discourage you from speaking, I understand from your post that this was the effect it had on you, regardless.

If it helps to know, my intention was only to respond to a point you'd raised, which I don’t believe anyone else did, about lived experience in the new peer support staff. There was no judgement in where I was coming from with this.

My interpretation of your initial post was that existing staff didn’t necessarily have lived experience, which I wanted to clarify for the community, although I should have clarified if this is what you had meant first.

Thank you for your honesty, please do continue to speak up, and I hope you can continue to feel safe on the forums.

Girasole

I thank you also for your honesty also. Your last sentence helps reassure and allow some room for calm.

You have responded to me without becoming defensive or trying to justify your original post.

This is what means the most to me.

This does not mean that you are wrong and I am right.

This means that we can as you encouraged feel safe in speaking up when something does feel odd.

I must say my intention was to refer to having lived experience acknowledged amongst the new peer support staff, as a great thing. I was not aware whether or not this was the case with all previous and or current staff. This is my trying to explain my words, not defend or justify, if this makes sense.

Best outcome is we have proven that we can all write about the same thing in our own styles and never be sure whom we might offend.

Knowing this, it is helpful for others to read also that this is alright as reassurances are given.

We are safe in being ourselves.

The uniqueness of our individual minds will always open up new discussions.

Welcome aboard and enjoy meeting so many interesting people, whom we would not have the opportunity to do so in the world outside of the forums.

🎈

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