We’re looking for a French-speaking 1-1 Chat Facilitator to provide trauma-informed support and care to users of our Bloom project, via our 1-1 chat service.

About Chayn

Chayn is an award-winning, open-source collective that leverages technology to empower women against violence and oppression so they can live happier and healthier lives. Chayn started in 2013 to provide survivors of abuse with accurate, diverse and accessible information.

Since our beginnings, over half a million people have accessed our award-winning work online, generating 1.2 million page views. Up to 70% of our volunteers are survivors of abuse which means not only are our projects user-centred - they are user-led. We are experts in trauma-informed work. We are one of the few feminist technology projects tackling gender-based violence while creating and maintaining openly-licensed products and code. We’re proud to have been profiled by GitHub for this during GitHub Universe 2018 and on GitHub Sponsors. Most of our funding comes from non-profit funding.

About Bloom

Bloom is a free, web-based support service run by Chayn. Designed for anyone who has experienced or is currently experiencing domestic or sexual abuse, all of our courses are packed with tailored information, guidance, everyday tools, and comforting words to cope with traumatic events. Our programme involves learning, reflecting, and processing how what we’ve been through may have affected us - all in a safe and empowering space. Bloom is totally free for survivors to use.

Watch this video which explains how Bloom works!

Examples of our courses are:

• Healing from sexual trauma
• Creating boundaries
• Reclaiming resilience in your trauma story

Alongside our online Bloom courses, participants have the option to message us to reflect on their thoughts, feelings and learnings from the courses.

About the role

Bloom’s courses were originally written in English, but we want to offer them in multiple languages to support many survivors across the world. We have recently made Bloom available in Spanish, and will soon be rolling it out in French, Hindi and Portuguese.

This 1-1 Chat Facilitator position is an integral part of our mission to reach as many survivors as possible, in multiple languages across the globe.

This role will respond to messages from French-speaking Bloom users on our 1-1 Chat Service, using our messaging platform. You will provide support, validation, and signposting to French-speaking survivors of gender-based violence.

You will be:

• Answering messages from French-speaking users of Bloom
• Building trust with survivors
• Creating a safe space for Bloom users to talk about their experiences, and ask any questions that come up from the material
• Validating survivors’ feelings
• Showing care, curiosity, and interest in survivors’ stories
• Demonstrating, through trauma-informed, caring and reliable communication, that survivors are not alone
• Offering hope in survivors finding avenues for support by demonstrating care and connecting and signposting them to other resources
• Working as part of the Chat Service Facilitator team to reflect on our ways of working and improve survivor experiences with our 1-1 Chat Service
• Attending 1-1 chat team meetings and safeguarding meetings on a monthly basis

Other tasks as part of this role may include:

• Translating documents into French
• Updating our written materials
• Testing our Bloom platform
• Supporting us with creating social media content

Your profile

Essential

• Native-level fluency speaking and writing in French
• Fluency speaking and writing in English
• Expertise in understanding of the needs of survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence
• Experience providing trauma-informed support and care to survivors of gender-based violence across different cultures
• Solid understanding of the needs of survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and the ecosystem of support (with particular focus on ecosystems outside of the Global North)
• Excellent communication skills, especially written communication
• Attention to detail
• Flexible working patterns and availability for chat shifts on weekends

Desirable

• Understanding of mental health sector
• Experience or study in the field of psychology
• Experience of working within small, distributed and global teams
• Passion for technology

It’s important that all team members have an understanding of intersectionality and systems of oppression and an affinity with Chayn’s aims and organisational values which can be found here.

The position

Hours

Our 1-1 Chat Facilitators work to a schedule that consists of one-hour check-ins within two windows:

• Window 1: 9AM- 3PM GMT
• Window 2: 5PM-11PM GMT

Our chat schedule runs on a monthly basis and the chat schedule for the following month will be provided one month in advance. As we want to be as flexible as possible, you can either agree or disagree to your proposed schedule for the month. We ask that you communicate to us your agreement or disagreement to the following month’s scheduling with at least three weeks prior notice.

We are looking for people who can give us around 2-3 hours per week.

You can request changes to your schedule, days off, or swaps. More information will be provided to you on scheduling as part of our onboarding process.

Chayn is a fully remote organisation.

Inclusion

At Chayn, inclusion and accessibility are at the core of our work. We welcome applicants from all walks of life. Given the nature of our courses and our audience, we encourage applications from mental health professionals who grew up in the Global South (or Majority World).

We also encourage applications from people of colour, LGBTQ+ people (we are a trans-inclusive organisation), people with disabilities, and people who have experienced other exclusion or marginalisation. Up to 70% of our team members are survivors of abuse so if you are one too and are thinking to apply, know that you will be in a safe and affirming space.

We have tried to make this recruitment process as accessible as possible, but know that there might be more that we can do, particularly if you have experienced exclusion, disadvantage or discrimination, or if you have particular accessibility needs. We would be happy to provide any further support that you may require - please get in touch with us at team@chayn.co, and we can think together about how to make this process easier for you.

Process

To apply, please send the following to team@chayn.co with Bloom 1-1 Chat Facilitator [French-speaking] in the subject line.

Please send us:

• A CV (no more than two pages)
• Cover letter outlining why you are interested in this work, your relevant experience, your approach to the work. This should be no longer than one page.

Deadline: 12 September 2022