Safe In Our World brings FREE Mental Health Awareness Training to Community Managers

Safe In Our World is delivering free bespoke mental health awareness workshops for Community Managers, supported by Humble and facilitated by Mind Fitness.

Ready to level up your mental health awareness and learn practical tools for safeguarding yourself and your community? Humble is supporting a series of Mental Health Awareness training workshops, developed and delivered by Mind Fitness, to address the specific challenges that Community Managers face in the games industry.

Why do Community Managers need mental health awareness?

The position of Community Manager is still relatively new, but has quickly become a critical role in the games industry. Over the last decade, we’ve seen Community Management take many shapes – often evolving into one person doing many jobs!

Managing forums, creating content, scheduling social media posts, gathering and analysing player feedback, bug reporting, writing and delivering developer update videos, delving into the world of influencer marketing, the list goes on.

If you ask two Community Managers what they do, chances are their answers won’t be the same. Still, they’ll likely have experienced the pressure of trying to be everywhere at once. It’s also likely they’ll have encountered toxicity or had to moderate difficult social interactions.

The role of the Community Manager can seem limitless. Without clear frameworks and established expectations, the internal and external demands can be overwhelming. We must provide CMs with the tools to look after their own wellbeing, by giving them the knowledge and confidence to signpost players to resources, and switch off when they’re off the clock. – Andy, Mind Fitness

What skills can Community Managers learn through mental health training?

Managing online communities presents significant, unique challenges that require confidence, decisiveness, and compassion to resolve. We’re committed to establishing more mental health role models and allies across the games industry, and Community Managers are leading the way.

With our free three-hour digital workshop, CMs can enhance their understanding of mental health and learn how to apply practical and emotional skills to protect themselves and others. They’ll learn how to establish healthy boundaries online and how to signpost players towards mental health support and resources.

The course will also cover:

• Identifying and managing stress
• Understanding mental health, stigma, and discrimination
• Insights into key policies and advice from the WHO (World Health Organisation)
• A closer look at anxiety and mood disorders
• What to do in a mental health emergency
• Understanding wellbeing and safeguarding your own mental health
• Developing your emotional intelligence

It’s wild to think I started my mental health awareness journey doing this training with Mind Fitness and Safe In Our World back in 2021, when I was a Community Manager. It unlocked something in me, and now, fast-forward four years, I’m working at the mental health charity where it all began. I learned so much from Mind Fitness, including skills I’ve now put into practice time and time again, protecting the mental health of the communities I’ve been privileged to serve. But it also helped me look after myself online! I’d recommend it to any CM or anyone in a player-facing role. Or just anyone in games, really. – Em

How to sign up for free Mental Health Awareness training

If you’re a Community Manager or someone in a player-facing role, or you just want to gain a deeper insight into mental health in the context of gaming communities, you can sign up on Eventbrite.

If you are a manager or team leader and you’d like to register members of your team for this three-hour mental health awareness workshop, we’d recommend sending over the Eventbrite link so they can register themselves (just so they’ll get the email invite for the session, and reminders when it’s about to start).

Being a Community Manager involves navigating toxicity, difficult conversations, and a minefield of potential miscommunication. Give your Community Managers the toolkit to succeed (and to switch off and protect their own wellbeing), and register now.