July 2024 Community Update!
Dear Community,
I hope you all are well!
Things are good here. I’ve been doing more traveling and presenting lately. There is increasing demand for people to know how AI can help with mental health. I point to our community as a shining example and a “treatment team” of volunteers, clinicians and Noni. I’m working on an article now that highlights how AI can be used to supplement, but not replace human efforts. I’ll share it soon for your feedback!
Another big update from us is that we have a new home page. I think the team did a great job on it. If you haven’t seen it yet, then open up 7cups.com in a new incognito tab or in a new browser where you are not logged in to check it out. This is our “front door” and it needed a new paint of coat bad. Let us know what you think below!
And a big THANK YOU to all who participated in the TaketoThrive Gratitude badge study. If you haven’t seen it yet, then check it out here.
Heather
Thanks to everyone who showed up to celebrate Pride Month! It was a great success and I appreciate all the teamwork of those who made posts and set aside time to host sessions. Remember, Pride Month might be concluded but pride in oneself, inclusivity, and representation are a year-round mindset and way of life!
This month in our Leadership Spotlight series, we highlighted one of our passionate Quality Mentors, the lovely @JustSophia. Swing by this post after you're done here to learn about her and give her congrats.
We are still looking for folks who are willing to record a video or audio clip to contribute to our "How 7 Cups Helped Me" community video as part of our birthday month celebrations. Not only do you get your story featured but there's also an exclusive badge tied to this initiative. We have even extended the deadline to ensure everyone who wants to participate can! Any questions about this campaign, lemme know!
And lastly, happy birthday 7 Cups! We hope to see you at our live event this Friday. Send in some Paper Plate Awards nominations and we’ll see you there!
Laiba
Our Conquering Anxiety series came to an end. In June we covered, Panic Attacks and How to Tackle Them, Learning from Others, and a series wrapped with a summary of all covered topics. Participants have until the end of the day, July 5 to complete the series. You can find all the posts here.
Additionally, our 4 week long streaks of service challenge (exclusive to teens and ATLs) came to an end. You can congratulate the users who completed the challenge here. In Mindful Minutes, @Arie3 @Kenzolena, and @Darkerplaces all earned the Emotional Regulation Skills Certificate for participating in/hosting 10 Mindful Minutes sessions.
On the Academy front, we are focused on ensuring more of our users are aware of the opportunities available to them in the form of academy programs. We worked on recruiting more project agents focused on outreach and we have a few of them in trial currently. If you wish to become an academy project agent and get the word out about academy programs, do apply here.
Obs
Thank you, everyone, for daily learning, supporting and growing together in the Group Support Chats. The other day, one of the members told me how they find Sharing Circle a great place to feel heard and they like how it is structured. Each group chat is unique in its purpose and how it connects participants from different geographical regions with a shared goal. And I appreciate how you all bring new insights, experiences, and learning to share. However, given that feedback, we started working on two ideas:
Sharing Circle Experience Survey and inviting some of our valued members to share their experiences in Sharing Circle. We will be sharing their thoughts and tips with the community.
Working on an effort with Lou73 to recognize and appreciate our Sharing Circle Hosts for their continued and constant efforts to support Sharing Circle every day, week, and month. The eventual goal would be to appreciate all hosts and discussion leaders in the group chats for their above & beyond efforts to facilitate therapeutic discussions and conversations.
On the Listener Quizzes front, 4800 listeners completed the quiz and it received 8.8/10 on likeness, informative & helpfulness. If you haven’t attempted them yet, give them a try here! We are also working on introducing Quiz-VIII on more chat scenarios and understanding the community.
On the Teen front, we will be opening “The Playground” group chat with the purpose of games and activities like alphabet games, word scrambles and trivia, mad-libs, and more to try on. A big shout out to @CommunityModIris for bringing the idea and working with me to make this happen.
Ayesha
This month the content focus remained on the Q&A section at 7 Cups, a space where you can find peer support for common questions as well as ask any of your own!
We have also updated our Learn lessons to include key skills for relationships, emotional wellbeing, communication, self-care and other DBT based skills. We look forward to users gaining skills and using these lessons in their daily lives
Evelyne
Care Team has been working hard on activities. Snow hosted 3 great events, including an Open Book Event, a Party, and a Trivia Night! Everyone has completed our semi-annual refresher and we are actively recruiting a few new Project Agents!
Mango
We welcomed 2 forum supporters and 1 community mentor to 3 of our communities in the month of June. Join us here in congratulating them.
We are currently looking for new additions to join our Communities Leadership Team as Project Agents. There are currently four focuses available for you to choose from: Events, Engagement, Community Building and Leadership. The application form and full details of what we are looking for can be found here.
A friendly reminder for all forum supporters, community mentors and community mentor leaders are asked to fill out the Subcommunity Leadership Check-In Form for the month of June so we can keep updated on what’s going on in your team and roles and see how we can offer our assistance.
Lastly, if you notice or experience any difficulties while using the forums, please help us to track and report any bugs in this thread. A gentle reminder when reporting bugs or issues, please give as much detail like time and location as to where it was experienced and include screenshots or any error codes so we can properly investigate it. Thank you for your continued support and here’s to what the new month brings.
@GlenM
Hi everyone! 😊 ❤️
Many thanks for the update as well as for all of the fantastic contributions!
*high fives* 😊 and *hugs* ❤️
@SparkyGizmo
@Heather225
❤️❤️❤️
@SparkyGizmo high five and thanks Sparky!
@GlenM
❤️❤️❤️
@GlenM
Thanks very much to you all for this update!
7 Cups never stops improving on all fronts, and that’s very stimulating.
Regarding the use of AI for emotional support, I think the human-centered approach of 7 Cups, using AI to complement, strengthen and improve support by real people, is the best and wisest. I have tried purely AI services, and I marvel at the technology, it’s really amazing, a wonder to behold.
But as emotional support, after a while, it feels like having decaffeinated coffee for breakfast. It might taste the same. It might taste even better. But it would leave me with the feeling that something is missing. Human connection is missing. A vague sense of emptiness, that no one was there really, and this might even backfire if what I need is connection. And not just clever answers and recommendations.
Connecting with someone who is like me, vulnerable to suffering, who feels compassion, and can also laugh and enjoy life, this has no substitute for me.
I look forward to reading your article on this topic, a most interesting and “hot” subject nowadays.
I visited the new home page and it’s gorgeous! Parallax scrolling gives it a contemporary, dynamic feeling. Congratulations to those who worked on it! Amazing job!
And all its beauty is at the service of conveying important messages and ideas about 7 Cups.
It inspires much trust. This is crucial. Also hope. And it’s very motivating. It showcases vividly the various support systems 7 Cups offers and it’s very inviting to try them.
Also, the first steps for becoming a member feel like I am already doing something significant to feel better, I have broken the inertia, I am moving forward, and there is a well-structured path to a better future. All of that, in the very first steps.
These improvements and innovations will certainly encourage more people to join our community, with a proactive mindset from the start, to become active in diverse Cups places, and not only 1 on 1 chats.
So, again, congratulations on these great and important improvements!
Many things have been improving a lot lately.
The future looks bright for 7 Cups!
@HealingTalk this is so well said, "But as emotional support, after a while, it feels like having decaffeinated coffee for breakfast. It might taste the same. It might taste even better. But it would leave me with the feeling that something is missing. Human connection is missing. A vague sense of emptiness, that no one was there really, and this might even backfire if what I need is connection. And not just clever answers and recommendations." If you are okay with it, then I might use this in some of the upcoming talks. I think you really captured it.
It is very clear to me that people want to talk to other people and a big part of that is to know that we matter to another person. That human spark / love / compassion / connection / felt sense of being seen - however we describe it - I believe it is healing and that is something a bot will not be able to provide.
And very glad you like the home site!
@GlenM
Thank you so much, Glen!
You using that phrase would be a great honor to me.
I am 100% on the same page with you regarding the importance of human connection for emotional support.
And yes, the new home page is really great! Beautiful, functional, and very persuasive.
All the very best to you, and much luck with those presentations!
@GlenM In the same vein, I thought you might like to know that listeners tend to be annoyed by the suggestions popping up (and being in the way) when trying to reply, and that at least some prefer to ignore them - those would probably be grateful to be able to turn it off.
You might also like to know that Noni, compared to other AI agents I've talked to, is very inept at listening - basically every chat with it for me ends with me feeling worse than before, because it just doesn't understand anything, and when it doesn't know what to reply, or you get frustrated because it really doesn't understand the most basic phrases, goes into repeating that 'it is there for you', which is the absolute opposite of what I am experiencing in that moment. It also skips messages, and replies to previous messages later. I find it is a danger to my mental health, and definitely not a benefit.
I agree that AI is not the way to go for mental health support, but I think training people is. Helping them get better at listening. Not throwing out everyone's most private data to yet another third party and wasting energy that would better be saved to rescue the sad remainder of our planet.
AI is one big hype, it's not better than Bitcoin, blockchain or NFTs in that regard. It cannot understand anything, it's just a parrot that throws out sentences that are likely to follow previous sentences. It looks good to stakeholders and investors to say 'oh hey, we're modern, we do AI', but to humans, it looks much better to say 'look, we train our listeners well, they know how to deal with a variety of problems, and they are safe to talk with'.
@GlenM and by the way, that unfriendly habit of hiding posts that might in the least sound negative is... horrible.
.... unless your belief is that it is not acceptable to show any negative emotions in public, and your goal is to train people to only show positive emotions. Which, honestly, is just the opposite of mental health.
Agreed
@GlenM
Thank you 😊
@GlenM
Thank you for the updates Glen. Glad to be a part of the 7 cups family 😇
@GlenM
Thank You Hope you have an Outstanding and Great day as well today
