Dear Soon-to-be facilitator and facilitator’s guardian:
We’d like to tell you more about Give Us The Floor in order to alleviate any doubts or concerns you may have about our organization and the role of a supportive group chat facilitator.
Give Us The Floor is a registered 501©3 non-profit organization which has been operating for 4+ years and has positively impacted thousands of teens. The teenage years are a difficult and unbalanced period of life. The challenges that youth struggle with and the ways they handle them or not can push them into anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-harm, bullying, physical health issues or suicide.
Our mission is to provide a safe space in which teens can support each other and safely share the difficulties they go through with peers who have faced or are facing the same challenges. The result is that stigmas, taboos, and shame surrounding common issues teens face are removed so that our members begin to believe in themselves and feel supported by their peers.
Action is critical to prevent a public health crisis. Some alarming statistics you should be aware of:
- 50% of Americans will have a mental disorder* (Kessler RC et al., 2005, Harvard Medical School)
- 75% will have started by age 24*
- Mental Health Stigma is a major barrier to treatment
Give Us The Floor’s website is secure. We DO NOT share any personal information about our members. Please look at our Privacy Policy and terms of service
What are supportive group chats?
Supportive group chats are teen-only groups hosted on the Give Us The Floor app. Members share their day-to-day difficulties, insights, accomplishments, and, most of all, support each other. Teens who actively participate in these groups report a strong sense of not feeling alone and about 88% of them report having been helped by the supportive group chat. Participants live all across the United States. The groups contain between 8 and 17 young people and include at least one trained teen facilitator. Adult Advisors are on standby. They do not read messages unless alerted to a concern by a member.
What is the role of a Supportive Group Chat Facilitator and what are the perks?
- The role of a Facilitator is to support and encourage genuine conversation in the group chats, to uphold the comfort and safety guidelines within the group, and to act as a liaison between the GUTF adult team and the group.
- Our training provides the facilitators with communication and leadership skills that they will use their whole life.
- The volunteer position is a great addition to resumes and college applications.
- Each Facilitator earns 5 hrs of community service per month, provided all duties listed below are fulfilled.
How do we ensure these groups are safe?
Community Rules are strictly enforced and each member is encouraged to contact the Adult Advisor at any time if something does not feel right or if a member does not respect the rules. We ask every participant to refrain from sharing personal information. Additionally, one of the rules is that the participants limit their conversation to the group and not participate in 1:1 contact.
If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to our adult supportive group team at groups@giveusthefloor.org. We are happy to provide you with any additional information!
Please carefully read through each item. By putting your name and signature, you are agreeing and committing to uphold everything listed in this contract.
1. The commitments of Facilitators
- Attend training which consists of
- Self paced online modules and quizzes
- Two-week mock chat in app
- One 30-60 minute follow up online training via video conference with an adult advisor
- Commit to 8 weeks minimum to facilitate a group
- Facilitate chat at least 6 days/week
- Fill out topic survey once per month
- Respond to Adult Advisor within 24 hours except if you previously notified you would be on a break
- Report any inappropriate behavior within 12 hours of you seeing it
- If unable to facilitate the chat, notify adult advisors at least 2 weeks ahead for a break. Your community service hours will be adjusted prorate to your time off. It can’t be more than 2 weeks in a row every 6 months
- If you prefer to stop facilitating a group, give at least a 2-week notice (If you stop without notice, you will lose a whole month of community service hours)
By completing your role as outlined above, you will earn 5 community service hours per month. If you go above and beyond the expectations you could earn up to an additional 2 hours.
Becoming a Senior Facilitator:
After a few months of showing your dedication and professionalism, we may ask you to become a “Senior Facilitator”. Senior Facilitators are invited in other facilitator's groups to encourage conversation in the best and more meaningful way. Senior Facilitators earn a stipend of $60 and 2 additional hours of community service for each month spent helping another facilitator.
Deductions and Termination:
We divide the total monthly amount of community service hours by the required tasks and duties and begin deducting for missed tasks or tardiness to promote professionalism and accountability.
If you are not following through or demonstrating the behavior, leadership, and/or commitment that’s expected of you, Give Us The Floor reserves the right to terminate your role at any time, with 24 hours notice.
2. Facilitators and their guardians (If Facilitator is under 18) are required to comply with any and all applicable federal, state and local laws, rules and regulations.
3. You, and your guardian if applicable, release Give Us The Floor from all liability relating to injuries[1] that may occur during Give Us The Floor meetings, activities, and events or during your role as a facilitator. By signing this waiver, you agree to hold Give Us The Floor entirely free from any liability, including financial responsibility for injuries incurred.
You swear that you are participating voluntarily and that you do not have any conditions that will increase your likelihood of experiencing injuries while engaging in your role of facilitator or in activities such as participating in creative projects, attending events, etc.
4. Give Us The Floor is a supportive and safe community of teens. You agree to follow these rules:
- Whatever is shared within members of the organization stays there. We do not gossip.
- We can talk casually and freely.
- It’s important that we remain open to others and new ideas.
- We agree to disagree. We respect each other’s values.
- We always have the right to pass. No one forces anyone to speak or do anything. Do what’s best for you as an individual.
- If you are harassed or treated in an inappropriate way by another member(s) or adult(s), or if you are the witness of such behavior, it is your duty to report it immediately to a member of the adult team. Note: Give Us The Floor runs background checks on every adult in contact with teen members. If someone is hurting you or another member, then that person can potentially hurt others.
A Mandated Reporting situation for the adult team is if a member is involved in, threatened by, or could potentially be involved in a situation that is violent in any way (self-harm or harm to others). This includes: suicide, child abuse, violence, or murder.
By signing below, you forfeit all rights to bring a suit against Give Us The Floor for any reason. You will make every effort to obey safety precautions as explained to you verbally by Give Us The Floor staff and teen leaders. You will also ask for clarification when needed.
5. You hereby grant Give Us The Floor and its legal representatives the irrevocable right to use and publish any and all photography, videography, audio file and/or any material that has been taken of you at Give Us The Floor events (whether in person or online) for any purpose, without compensation to you. You grant Give Us The Floor the right to use, modify, reproduce, display, adapt, and transmit any photograph, digital image, video, audio files. All files are wholly owned by Give Us The Floor. Give Us The Floor will not publish minors’ private information without prior agreement and will protect as much as it can minors’ private information.
You acknowledge that Give Us The Floor has no control over and is not responsible for any use or misuse including, but not limited, to any alteration, modification, reuse or distortion of your photograph, video, audio files, etc. that may occur or be caused by third parties. Give Us The Floor will not be monitoring and has no control over third parties’ use or misuse of my photograph, video, audio files, etc.
6. You hereby grant to Give Us The Floor and its legal representative and assigns the irrevocable right to use and publish on any platform any creative piece that you have submitted to GUTF and this for any purpose, without compensation to you. This piece(s) are voluntarily created and submitted by you. This includes but is not limited to blogs, vlogs, videos, photos, audio files, poems, animation, designs, coding, etc.
You swear that the creative pieces you will submit to GUTF (if you choose to do some) for publishing are your own creation, are completely created by you and do not infringe any copyrights. You understand that you must cite your sources when using any part of something another person said or wrote and that not doing so is considered plagiarism. You hereby release Give Us The Floor and its legal representatives from all claims and liability relating to said creations. You certify that before submitting any pieces to Give Us The Floor you have obtained releases from any person that appears in your pieces when people can be recognized whether by image or sound.
Give Us The Floor will sometimes ask you if you want to be credited with your first name and social media handles. If there is no response from you in time for publication, GUTF will have the right to decide to credit the piece, or not, with your first name (Within a delay of 48 hours).
You acknowledge that you have read and understood the terms of the 6 parts of this agreement, waiver and release and that you agree to the above terms.
You understand that Give Us The Floor reserves the right to terminate any involvement you have with GUTF if you don’t follow the rules and guidelines above.
[1]For the entirety of the agreement, the term injuries will include, but is not limited to, emotional or psychological injuries as a result of participating in and taking a leadership role in the supportive group chats.
