Self Help Groups
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The age of Virtual meetings:
Open and Closed Meetings defined
People Growing Hope & Recovery came into being over time and has been involved in virtual meetings as well as in person meetings. In light of the age of virtual meetings it seems important to look at what it means to have ‘open’ and ‘closed’ meetings.
Meetings before the present age were mostly in person and for the sake of understanding were seen in 2 ways.
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Open meeting: a meeting at which the public may be present. Regardless of any limitations.
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Closed meeting: members can speak openly and honestly about their problem or situation, knowing that everyone else in the room has experienced similar situations.
For each there are some clear expectations and principles that are set.
When a meeting is held at a physical location the expectation is that while everyone may know the address and details of time, day and specific location within a room. In this way while people may know this information several things are important.
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Attendees have to take the initiative to drive or get transportation to the location.
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For closed meetings there may be people tasked with verifying people attending are there under the guidance set for attendance.
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For open meetings no rules may apply for screening but there may be rules for behavior.
The biggest difference between an open meeting and a closed meeting is the level of privacy. Some examples to demonstrate open and closed meetings are:
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Going to the beach or a park. In this instance there may be areas that provide some privacy, but none are truly closed as anyone who is around can listen in or be there.
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Going to a Dr. Appointment. In this case it is usually limited to you and those who are providing medical care. You can chose who knows what the appointment is about and in most cases the Dr. and medical professionals are bound by Dr. Patient confidentiality.
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Going to a store is again a more open environment and often there are cameras recording people and what they are doing. It is a situation where no guarantee of privacy is possible.
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When seeing a counselor it is again a situation where privacy and confidentiality is part of the interaction.
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Thus the open meeting has little or no expectation of privacy or confidentiality while the closed meeting has more reasonable measures in place to offer added privacy protections to better safeguard against public intrusions, access or awareness of private matters being shared by those in an online meeting.
The Age Of Virtual Meetings
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In the age of Virtual meetings the line is blurry to some when it comes to open and closed meetings as few have considered the problems and exposure possibilities. People Growing Hope & Recovery takes this to heart and as such, attempts to set some guidance on the difference between open and closed meetings in the realm of Virtual and Hybrid combination meetings.
Some Precautionary Warnings
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While there are many fellowships on line offering meetings it is wise to know what dangers are a part of the attendance. In the experience of PGHR and from the readings of best practices here are things to know.
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best practices Advise against posting the information on a public website beyond time and day
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A meeting that is open is easily accessed by all and regardless of encryption, waiting rooms etc. are unlikely to be any more secure than a public mall full of customers.
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If you attend a public meeting as mentioned above it should be noted that there are 2 forms of unwanted attendees that may be present. Bombers (People who are visible and can create problems but also can be removed) Ghosts (People who come in under the connection of an attendee but cannot be seen). The Ghost attendees are a serious problem as they may be gathering information from connected devises which includes people you know which is beyond actual attendees.
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If attending a meeting be aware of the way the meeting is found and consider carefully if the meeting is not either a pre register or member area type of meeting.
At the end of this page will be some links to information on meeting safety. Before that it is beneficial to share some of the best securing methods as set forth by professionals as well as from the experience of the founder of PGHR.
Virtual meetings are not guaranteed to be completely secure but with procedures put in place the risk can be mitigated to the point of being as safe as any other closed meeting attended in person.
PGHR uses 2 forms of securing meetings that are provided:
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First is the procedure of setting up the members area which means members of that area are verified and by logging in the person is able to attend meetings. once a member then the meeting can be verified by the information provided and thus if a person tries to join without having connected to the members area they will not get in without further scrutiny (IE being accepted into the members area or communicating with the administrator for a 'key' to enter.
The second way is a preregistration event. In this case the person fills out specific information which will be verified before attending the meeting. Upon being verified the person will get a unique link to join which identifies them and provides access.
Links to security information
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