Balancing volunteering and community responsibilities with personal and professional obligations can be stressful; it's difficult to know who to turn to for support. As a Drupal community volunteer, this session reflects on my experience, and proposes a framework to empower community teams to support each other.

Prerequisite
None, although experience with volunteering and community contribution would be extremely relevant for this session

Outline
Volunteer team members in communities take their responsibilities extremely seriously and desperately want to avoid letting their team down. This can often be a weighty burden if they find themselves struggling to fulfill the obligations they have accepted. This session will focus on:

Dealing with over-commitment: There can be many reasons for ‘biting off more than we can chew’. A common one is because we are passionate about certain initiatives or subjects and really want to get involved… pushing ourselves beyond our own capacity. Whatever the reason, it is important to be honest with ourselves, and then with others in our team, before something starts to give.

Spotting the warning signs: If a team member is struggling to cope, it is likely they put on a brave face and suffer in silence. Establishing a culture that encourages people to seek help is fundamental, but we should also equip each other with insights that can help us to spot warning signs in order to create ‘safe spaces’ for team members to open up.

Practical ideas: Explore how we can augment existing Drupal community frameworks to provide greater guidance and tools to help teams support each other.

Through adopting a framework of compassionate support, we can foster improved collaboration, increased contribution, and diverse participation that continues to add fuel to the driving force behind Drupal.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this sessions, attendees will:
a) have a deeper understand the pressures faced by volunteers
b) be aware of and better able to spot warning signs that team members might be struggling
c) be able to join the journey to improve our existing frameworks and ways of working to improve community collaboration and team health

Experience level
Beginner