Prohibit "Emotional Support" Groups

[Landon]

See;
https://www.mc-market.org/threads/558089/
https://www.mc-market.org/threads/441178/
https://www.mc-market.org/threads/511216/

The idea behind "emotional support" groups seems brilliant. Provide users on the forum who are suffering with their own battles an outlet to talk to someone and get it off their chest. To get feedback and suggestions on what to do to counteract what they are going through.

Emotional support groups are a great idea when executed properly. However, the issue with these groups on MC-Market is that they are not accredited.

The issue with these groups on MC-Market, is that they are volunteers, just wanting to do good for the community. Which, like I said, I understand. However, there is a lot more than "wanting to help people!" that goes into dealing with emotional crises.

https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-by-the-numbers

1. 19.1% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2018 (47.6 million people). This represents 1 in 5 adults.
2. 4.6% of U.S. adults experienced serious mental illness in 2018 (11.4 million people). This represents 1 in 25 adults.
3. 16.5% of U.S. youth aged 6-17 experienced a mental health disorder in 2016 (7.7 million people)
4. 3.7% of U.S. adults experienced a co-occurring substance use disorder and mental illness in 2018 (9.2 million people)

https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

1. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.
2. In 2017, 47,173 died by suicide.
3. In 2017, an estimated 1,400,000 attempted suicide.

Mental health is something that should be treated seriously by people with credited certification. Not something people are attempting to do for volunteer hours. It can literally be between life and death: Going to a MC-Market Emotional Support group with no certification or calling/chatting with the Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Overall, I think MC-Market should prohibit these "emotional support" groups from offering their services. It is almost guaranteed that the volunteers have no certification, and that there is no strict client-confidentially enforced.

However, if a group can provide proof that their staff/volunteers are certified (ie; QPR Institute) and require their staff/volunteers to sign legal documents pertaining to confidentially, then they should be able to offer their services.

I don't think untrained groups should be attempting to provide support for emotional crises. Mental health is a legitimate problem, and as-so, should be taken seriously. Not something done for volunteer hours with no credible certification/confidentiality.

edit: I would like to make clear that I do not wish to prohibit simple peer-to-peer groups looking to provide users an outlet to rant and let out their emotions. There is a fine line between simple peer support and attempting to provide support for serious mental crises. Thanks!

 

[Satan]

This doesn't solve the problem of these groups advertising "Suicide Support". If you take into account what actual emergency operators go through to be able to answer these calls, it's just ridiclous for them to be advertising this. Real emergency centers have actual trained staff that get background checks done regularly. Basically, I think a 3rd point should be added to your guidelines: "Advertising or offering suicide support is not permitted."

I don't think we have to be this strict on groups trying to just volunteer their time to essentially make friends. Thats what this comes down to. There's no guarantee of anything, there's no formality with ensuring that the language used in contact with the "suicide support group" and the "recipient" of such language will result in their improved well being. Theres no guarantee its just a friend group basically.

 

[Mick]

This is a suggestion I've been genuinely stumped on. I completely see where you're coming from and agree with you that we need to start discouraging or disallowing these sorts of services, I just can't think of an elegant way of doing so. Adding a new rule for such a niche and specific type of thread isn't something we do, so it'll take some thinking for a nice way to make this happen.

I'll move this to pending until then. Thank you for bringing this issue up in such a well-structured suggestion.

 

[Mick]

This has been introduced. We now have created the following wiki articles explaining this change:

https://www.mc-market.org/wiki/emotional-support-sites-and-groups/
https://www.mc-market.org/wiki/forbidden-products-and-services/

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll move this to accepted