Sometimes when people most need help, they don’t even know where to begin.
It can take a long time to find and get help, and then to find out maybe that person or support group meant to help but can’t relate or worse can’t even empathize… that’s very cold and can make things much worse.
Unique challenges exist for people who are go-go-go builders and creators working long and unusual hours, physically crunched into devices while accumulating the health and emotional issues that come from it, for people who experience wild swings in personal fortunes, big wins and big losses, building things only to watch those crumble at the vote or mint, working in a field or medium that few can grasp and even fewer respect or take seriously.
Add rugs, hacks and bears… oh my! Not in Kansas anymore, with no roadmap to go by.
Let’s discuss some form of resources, referral service, maybe a counseling firm on pay-go retainer, that understands exactly these types of personalities, challenges and issues, or can better explain it to your loved ones. A number people can call where they’re already understood with no need to explain.
Let’s make it an AIP?
Possibly this needn’t even be funded in any way and it’d be enough to have a FAQ on the forum with numbers to call in different parts of the world.
In the “real” world a lot of jobs come with counseling as a benefit but many don’t have such benefits - or a job, it can take quite awhile to finally be speaking with someone, the first talk is half spent onboarding, signing waivers and explaining your trouble, and in the end that person may have no good idea how to help with these specific challenges… it can all feel a bit like a rug if you’d been looking forward to a breakthrough.
Any mental health professionals, or similar here that can comment? Or other ideas from anyone? Help writing an AIP?
If there’s no input here I’ll contact some of the firms that provide group access for employers & such to suss logistics and pricing.
Am thinking we can do something more bespoke & particular though, esp. if there are counselors or firms that specialize in the issues noted above that are common in our community.
I think mental health is such an important part of long term success. I really love what you are looking to do here.
At this point in time, I’m extremely busy with WG0 and ApeComms, but would love to contribute in any way I can. I don’t know any mental health professionals in the space who are focused on the issues you mentioned directly, but may know people who do. I could ask around…
I completely agree with the importance of mental health specifically in web3/remote working. Add on that we have a culture of seeing just our pfp’s and we don’t even see human faces during the normal web3 working day!
I wonder if a lot could be done with consciously designing a culture that is supportive of mental health. For example I have really enjoyed the hangout time in the lounge in discord and ones played a bunch of games with a few people. It makes for great bonds and these friendships have to be good for mental health.
Indeed an incredibly important topic and one not talked about enough. Even more so in crypto. Even more so in this current market. Even more so in growing a dynamic DAO on Discord w 24/7 availability and a fast pace.
I was part of an initiative like this at my former employer and bring experience in good formats etc. in a work setting. Obviously we’d need to make it ApeCoin-native vs. web2 tech world.
NICCE! Exactly what I was thinking, in terms of utilizing existing organizations that provide this service for Web3 and beyond. And maybe Do an AIP to partner with them to provide xxx services to our DAO members.
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Huge fan of mental health and I would vote for DAO paying for any holder’s first session and then from there maybe if they participate in the DAO and hold, dunno, 5 $APE? 10? 20? Would need a tracking system. What do you think, feasible?
Most people will never use this. But for those that do, it can be so helpful. I’d use it myself! (ADHD, PTSD, badly narcissistic parents, etc. - been a while since I’ve talked to a therapist)
This is also a good investment. I know some people may think it’s a waste of money… but man, we help one person through this, they’ll try to return it tenfold. Nothing, absolutely nothing else in life is as important as mental health. Except maybe regular health =)
Maybe we can get HeathyGamerGG to make some vids for us on topics like trading, gambling, burnout? He already has them, but like customized to NFT community. Maybe 2-3 Twitter Spaces with him.
Not sure she would be able to take part in something on this scale but I have a friend in the space who’s a psychologist, and writing for BeyondTheSWAMP on the same topics you have listed. We also have a separate article with another author that conceptually, started out as a piece on the differences in bull and bear market psychologies but was being written during the SVB collapse/bankrun so we turned it into a “Bulls, Bears and Bankruns” piece.
Nonetheless, important topics to be talked about in high-volatility industries like ours.
Love the sound of this. Mental health awareness and action can be quite impactful. I come from the esports industry where it was laughed at to talk about one’s mental health. Only within the last few years has this started to change and the “grind” mentality which often leads to burnout is fading away.
My nonprofit provides a lot of free resources and connects gamers to mental health professionals and I’m 100% supportive of doing the same here!
Thanks everyone who’ve posted or “liked” to show interest and support, and thanks for some great suggestions.
@CSpikoski, could you post or DM info on your organization and how it accomplishes that? Post publicly if possible, please.
As I see it currently, it’s a good idea people seem open to. Need to hone this into the sweet spot between an easy to use but not easy to abuse system, open to as many people as possible yet not at the cost of paralysis.
I’m guessing that would mean partnering with a credible, established 3rd-party organization that provides such services, one language / country at a time. Similar to the ones many employers use for employee counseling benefits.
In those systems typically initial consults last up to 3 sessions, sometimes with the possibility of ongoing sessions in more serious circumstances on a case-by-case basis. Typically after those first 3 sessions, service provider gives client a list of local resources for ongoing help with their concerns, including for those in need of funding assistance.
I think “progress not perfection” definitely applies here, and anything would be better than nothing.
Out of pocket, I’ve hired someone with a psych degree who has worked as a counselor within a similar setup and has used such services as a client.
That person is calling major providers of these types of services in N. America to get an idea of what costs would be and how it could work for the DAO and its members.
Once some idea of costs are known, I’ll get input from Stewards and maybe SC … whomever in the DAO might offer a good guess of how many users there might be for such a service and how best to budget such a proposal, and make sure it can be expanded if more people need help than anticipated. Almost as bad as no help - maybe worse - is not getting help when someone expected it’d be there. We don’t want a FOMO counseling system.
Needs to be some kind of qualification / vetting. Sasha has some good suggestions above. Again, I’ll seek input.
Confidentiality is of utmost importance. I’m not sure yet if the counseling provider(s) need real names, but hopefully those would not have to be tied to online personas and the DAO would know as little as practicable.
Prevention of abuse by all sides is important too. So far best I can think of is that DAO funds a dedicated non-profit for this, and if it’s an incorporation it can be audited etc. That non-profit can also hold the service provier(s) accountable to ensure no abuse of the system.
Some kind of middle ground, a portal, can be set up, for which we can hire talent from within the $APE community if there isn’t an easy out-of-the-box solution available, through which people in need can access these services with their confidentiality protected. Service provider(s) just need to know someone calling them is covered by the DAO, and need to get paid. That’s it. The DAO / non-profit just needs to know to what degree services are being used, not specifically by whom or when, to budget needs and costs, and prevent abuse from all sides.
The only real difference here from how it’s traditionally done is an employer would know who is part of their benefit plan of course. Here we might only know a token address or similar. Maybe it has to go full-trad though and people need to be signed-up, in confidence, under real names just like real-world employees are. I don’t know. Yet.
If someone needs help it may not be unreasonable for someone else, somehow, to know it. Maybe a simpler system would be people just pay a very small portion of the costs, say 1 $ape, which is essentially how employee benefits actually work.
I may have missed some points or nuances, but that’s the gist.
Hoping to have some kind of cost estimates soon, and clarity on what service provider(s) would require to make it happen logistically, then float this as an AIP ASAP.
We have crucial clarity incoming from among the major providers of such services in North America, with respect to costs and how it all works.
Waiting on more data from other sources. I’m expecting that within a week or two, at which point I can make this an AIP to at least fund the next step.
@Vulkan - do we have any data on how many active participants the DAO has in given countries, specifically the U.S. and Canada to start? To make this idea a reality, we need to have an idea of how much potential use there may be.
I don’t have any data on DAO participants by country. I believe older AIP Ideas in the past were working on tools/apps to generate these estimates but that functionality was not completed.