Bumble Is Offering Trauma Support Services for Users

Dating app Bumble is taking another step to address concerns of abuse and harassment on its female-friendly platform: offering trauma services for those who need help.

The company partnered with remote trauma support site Bloom, operated by non-profit Chayn in the U.K., to offer free therapeutic services to users, according to Mashable. Bloom provides online courses on mental health topics for survivors of sexual assault and harassment, such as managing anxiety.

In addition to Bloom’s online courses, Bumble users can receive up to six therapy sessions and can chat online with therapists when they need. Chayn’s therapists are trained in sexual assault and trauma therapy, and some are survivors themselves, according to Mashable. 

Chayn’s mission is to provide support for survivors of gender-based violence. The non-profit’s website states: “Traditional therapies can be expensive, not to mention inaccessible for those who can’t leave the house. Likewise, in-person support groups may be unavailable or difficult to find. This is why we made Bloom - to foster a safe, anonymous, online space for survivors, that keeps the support and solidarity of a group environment.”

Chayn founder Hera Hussain told Mashable: "While being a survivor does not make someone an expert in all aspects of trauma and abuse, we believe that having lived experience of abuse and sexual violence within our team adds further depths of empathy and shared understanding to our work."

The courses offered will be in English and Spanish, but Bumble plans to roll out translations in French, Hindi, Arabic, and Urdu in 2022. 

For now, Bumble is only offering these support services to those who met their assaulters over the app. If a user reports an assault or abuse on the app, they receive a code to use Bloom’s customized offerings for Bumble free of charge. Eventually, Bumble plans to extend this service to all survivors of assault, no matter where or when they met their assailants.

Many dating apps are rushing to add safety features, including Bumble, as they have come under fire for not protecting users. Apps have also been criticized for the long lag times in delivering responses after a user reports a problem, contributing to the trepidation some people have with using dating apps.

In recent months, Bumble has taken several such initiatives, including the debut of Private Detector, which blurs out any explicit photos sent to a Bumble user and provides a notice so they can choose to delete the message before having to see it. The app has also banned body-shaming to reduce unsolicited messages and verbal abuse towards its members. 

Bumble is the first dating app to offer trauma support services to its users, but hopefully others follow suit.