Bumble, Badoo to offer trauma support for sexual assault survivors

Two dating apps, Bumble and Badoo, have teamed up with trauma support site Bloom to launch a complimentary online trauma support feature for any user who reports sexual assault or relationship abuse on the platform. This support is going to be offered in English and Spanish initially to Bumble and Badoo’s global communities and it will be expanded to French, Hindi, Portuguese, and Urdu later this year.

The company said that Bumble and Bloom have been working together for the past few months “to create a custom curriculum spearheaded by survivor-led insights and feedback”.

So, how is this going to work?

“If someone within the Bumble or Badoo community reports sexual assault or relationship abuse to either app’s feedback team, they will receive a code for free access to a version of Bloom’s support customised specifically for Bumble/Badoo members,” the company explained.

This version will include three self-guided courses - Healing from Sexual Trauma; Society, Patriarchy, and Sexual Trauma; and Dating, Boundaries, and Relationships. Additionally, Bumble and Badoo members can also receive access to one-to-one chat support and up to six therapy sessions, depending on the case.

“The safety of our members has been central to our mission from day one. It is vital that we create a space for survivors within our community to be seen, heard, and believed. Bumble and Badoo’s partnership with Bloom has allowed us to bring top-of-the-line trauma support services to our members. We look forward to continuing to innovate our product and create valuable partnerships to support our members’ experience of safety and healing from trauma around the world,” said Kenya Fairley, Bumble’s Head of Member Safety Support.

Bloom created a global survey which it sent out to Bumble and Badoo users and the results showed that emotional abuse was very common and that it takes place both online and offline equally, though in-person incidents are reported less often, as per the survey.

“More than one in three respondents (35 per cent) said they did not report because they didn't think it would achieve anything, and 15 per cent of respondents thought they wouldn't be believed. Additionally, over half (52 per cent) of Indian women surveyed who have experienced relationship abuse said that Covid-related restrictions had made their situation much worse,” Bumble said.

 “To guarantee privacy, every participant remains anonymous without missing out on a group setting. Bloom uses technology with end-to-end encryption that enables secure conversations, safely recreating in-person group therapy online for vulnerable people,” the company added in its announcement.

Bloom is run by Chayn, a survivor-led nonprofit addressing gender-based violence by creating intersectional resources online.

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