EA - EA Germany Community Health Documents & Processes by Milena Canzler

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: EA Germany Community Health Documents & Processes, published by Milena Canzler on August 30, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Our goal with these documents is to build a safe community for all our members by making sure any interpersonal harm is appropriately dealt with and encouraging harmed individuals to reach out to us. This is a collection of all the documents we created for EA Germany during the Community Health Project (March - July 2023). We were asked to share these with the wider community. We welcome others to use and adapt them and invite feedback.We created two types of documents:Public: to inform our community about our Code of Conduct, event standards, ways to report misbehaviours and ask for help, processes for evaluating and responding to reports, confidentiality, professional contact points, and Awareness Workshop results.Internal: description of the role and responsibility of the Community Health Contact, their interaction with the Equal Opportunities Officer of our association, and handover processes.Why we need thisLast week, Ninas, a new group organizer, was alerted by group member Sayat about allegations against a long-term member. Unaware of any past issues, Ninas informs Sayat, causing Sayat to feel belittled and cease work on a promising Biosafety camp. After confronting the accused and mistakenly revealing Sayat as the source, retaliation against Sayat ensues. Ninas, now shocked and believing Sayat, uncovers additional troubling stories about the long-term member after further inquiry. Ninas regrets not knowing earlier, as this knowledge could have prevented Sayat's distress and withdrawal from their project due to harassment.Imagine if Ninas, the hypothetical group organiser, had a starter pack of information about Community Health and previous incidents in their group. Imagine if they didn't botch their first conversation with Sayat and were better informed about confidentiality procedures.As part of the Community Health Project, which started in March 2023, we created a series of documents to inform our members about our offers and to document internal processes for the team. These documents exist to support us in staying in line with our vision and values. They further help identify areas for improvement and serve as the foundation for action.Setting in GermanyTo appreciate how these documents work, here is an overview of the system in and for which they're created. Other communities will have to adapt the processes for their own structure, culture and laws.Our structure: The German EA community has 27 active local groups. EA Germany is organised as a membership association Effektiver Altruismus Deutschland (EAD) e.V. with over 100 members. We currently have a team of five employees, some full-time and some part-time. The association also elects an Equal Opportunities Officer who checks our processes and important documents for discrimination. They also provided us with feedback on these documents.The resourcesPart of our strategy for 2023 is to provide a trained Community Health Contact, implement standards and offer documents for Community Health. With the support of colleagues, the Equal opportunities officer, CEA's Community Health team and experts, I assessed our options to create a safer community. This assessment is ongoing. Here is the summary of what needed to be done and the results so far:Public documentsCommunity Health ContactMental Health First Aid training to qualify me for this role in our teamInformed our community about this offer; also in GermanAnonymous contact forms established; also in GermanCode of ConductWe added avenues of reporting violations and responses to reports, an alcohol and drug policy and anonymous contact forms.During our annual meeting at the start of June, we asked the memb...