Gather My Crew

Project Summary

Gather my Crew (GMC) enables people in crisis to find the help they need when they need it. The free, online tool, GMC connects people to their community of friends, family and neighbours so they can ask for and receive practical help. The multi-task, multi-day rostering tool simplifies this process so that a community of ready and willing helpers can support fully their own friends, family and neighbours in need of help.

Background and Situation Context

When crisis strikes, humans are motivated to assist those in need. However, without the existence of a fit-for-purpose communication and coordination tool, a family who has experienced a crisis rarely activates their personal network in the most advantageous way. This can contribute to those experiencing crisis feeling unsupported or under-supported. Gathering the practical support needed in a crisis proves challenging and time consuming - and requires a thorough understanding of what families actually need. With the right tools, family and friends can play a greater supportive role in facilitating the recovery of those touched by disaster and crisis.

Activities

The concept of Gather My Crew was born in 2015 after Dr Susan Palmer, a registered psychologist and clinical researcher, tried to coordinate help for a friend in need only to find the role of spread-sheeting, coordinating and communicating quickly became overwhelming tasks. The greatest frustration was the knowledge that the care and support needed was available, but that the act of coordinating was just too difficult. The idea of creating a digital solution to this problem followed a 12-month 'deep-dive’ into the issue via interviews with:

• Survivors’ of crises
• Families who supported them, and
• Who guided them throughout their journey?

Through this research, three defining problems were identified that acted as barriers to people in need of receiving the much need help.

• People in crisis do not know what help they need or how to ask for it.
• Friends and family do not know how they can best help and do not want to ‘intrude’ by providing unwanted help.
• The task of coordinating meaningful help in any ongoing way is onerous and time consuming.

Central to the GMC solution was an exhaustive pre-populated needs’ list, developed in three stages:

1. Literature review
2. Review of unmet need surveys and ‘distress scales’ currently used in hospital and health settings
3. Feedback from the working parties

Feedback from both a clinical working party (consisting of social workers, psychologists and clinical nurse specialists) and a user working party (of breast cancer patients) revised the list, which included 84 commonly identified needs by people experiencing a crisis. The following categories represent these:

• Home
• Food
• Children
• Transport
• Pets
• Medical, and
• Social
• Miscellaneous

A ‘click and select’ task enables these options so that the person creating the account do not have to think about what help they need. Either the person in need or a delegated support person (e.g. friend, family member or support staff) enters tasks and then invites their own personal community to help (e.g. friends, neighbours, school groups, sporting teams, church groups and work colleagues). The Crew can login and select the tasks they are happy to help with. People can add additional needs to the rostering tool as they emerge. This entire process can be set up in as little as 15 minutes – either by the family in need or someone acting on their behalf - leaving the family knowing that they are not alone and will be well supported through the crisis.

Results

In the first 15 months since its launch, over 6,300 people registered with GMC and over 20,000 help requests have been created to support people in need. The most popular requests include:

• cooking dinner
• washing clothing
• coming for a visit
• taking me to a medical appointment
• walking the dog
• child minding
• giving carer a break, and
• school transport.

Users dealt with issues such as

• cancer treatment
• sudden death
• surgery
• car accident and
• stroke

Each of these events represents a personal crisis that requires a community support response. The data demonstrates that the average community gathers around a person in need for 53 days. User feedback shows that people who would not normally ask for help are able to do so through this technological solution as it has ‘depersonalised’ the difficult act of asking people for help. Through the Gather My Crew solution, more people are asking for help and more people are able to offer help that allows for their own busy lives via the GMC calendar.

What knowledge or product outcomes did the project accomplish?

The launch of a freely available web tool.

Reflection

Gather My Crew is a registered charity that provides a community building tool for no cost. Our team was able to do this due to the range of pro-bono partners that came on board in the early stages and committed to getting the concept off the ground. Together, this committed group of people used their unique skills, resources and perspectives, to create from nothing something amazing. Moreover, it is because of this shared commitment that we are able to provide our community building technology to users for no cost.

Critical Success Factors

• Derive sustainable and sufficient funding sources
• Increase awareness and user base
• Continual improvement of technology platform
• Demonstration of impact at a societal level

Barriers to Success

• Insufficient funds
• Insufficient staff resourcing
• Lack of social impact research
• Referral organisations very stretched with their own resources
• Competing with a huge number of other ‘service’ organisations for awareness in the marketplace

Additional Project Details