Community Management Mental Health Programme: Update

In 2020, we were lucky enough to be able to secure funding from the Jingle Jam to host free mental health training courses for Community Managers within the games industry. The course was designed to empower community managers, or anyone with a consumer facing role within the videogames industry, with knowledge, insight and best practice guidelines.

As of the end of January, we’ve officially finished our funded selection of courses, training almost 200 Community Managers in mental health to better equip them within their role, which was possible through the partnership with Mind Fitness.

Throughout the course, Community Managers learnt a great deal of knowledge around mental health conditions, stigma and discrimination, and best practice within the field. This included mental health first aid practices. But more specifically, they were taught how to better establish healthy boundaries and responsibilities within their role, progress in conflict management and importantly knowing what to do in a mental health emergency. We wanted our Community Managers to leave the course feeling confident about referring people to appropriate mental health resources and understanding emotional intelligence.

The course introduced techniques to provide non-judgemental support to those experiencing a mental health challenge, adaptable to the communities that our CMs manage on a day to day basis.

From the feedback we received on our course:

• 100% of participants would recommend the course to other Community Managers
• On average, participants rated the course trainer’s empathy, expertise and communication as 9.5/10
• On average, participants rated their overall learning experience as 8.9/10

We were absolutely delighted to learn people’s feedback of the course, and are actively working on the course content to better reflect what our participants would like to learn, including more of a focus on the community management specific elements.

”Mind Fitness Training are delighted to be working in partnership with the amazing team at Safe In Our World to create and deliver this impactful and necessary course. It’s a genuine privilege to train so many extraordinary professionals from all over the world. Community Managers are at the forefront of promoting the games industry and supporting their communities. By gaining a greater understanding of mental health, all course attendees are more confident about starting empathetic conversations that promote recovery and contribute to the battle against stigma and discrimination. These new skills are embedded within the RESPOND framework; this is how the training is making such a positive difference. Congratulations to all of our course graduates!” – Directors of Mind Fitness Training

Here’s what some of our participants had to say: 

“I now feel more validated in who I am as a person and ready to tackle any issues my community face.”

“All of the information was delivered thoughtfully and with extreme precision. Everybody’s mental health was thought of at all times during some difficult topics.”

“Thank you again for this amazing course, I learned a lot, had the chance to refresh old knowledge and felt very comfortable sharing my own experiences. It was great to meet so many new people and hear their personal stories too. Also left me feeling more confident with CM tasks in the future!”

“Its a perfect start to understanding the mental health concerns of our colleagues and communities and I, for one, found it helped tremendously with reframing my view of my personal Mental Health journey.”

“These tools and the confidence to use them were immediately applicable in my community and very well may have already saved a life.”

We’re proud to continue to support Community Managers and public-facing roles within our industry. We are happy to announce that this year we will be rolling out another set of funded courses. 

Keep an eye on our website for more updates on when the application process will reopen.