When you are in the Slack space, on the left-hand side you will see a menu and one of the sections is “Channels”. That is where all the channels are – they all start with a hashtag. You will automatically be enrolled in every channel when you join the workspace, but you are welcome to leave channels if they don’t interest you by right-clicking the channel and choosing “Leave Channel”. If you want to be in one of the above channels but you don’t see it in your channel list, click the + next to where it says “Channels” and you can join other channels that way. 

In the menu on the left-hand side, there is also a section called “Direct Messages” under the “Channels” section. Here is where you can start a direct message with another person in the workspace (if they do not already show up in the user list there, you can click the + sign to the right of where it says “Direct Messages” and type in the name of the person you want to chat with. You can also create private group chats with more than one other user.

Cancervention is an event that strives to be inclusive and build supportive spaces for people in our community. To that end, we expect that everyone will engage respectfully both in Zoom during sessions and in Slack. All community members should be treated with dignity regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, neurodiversity, physical appearance, ethnicity, nationality, language, race, age, religion, veteran status, or other protected category. We will not tolerate sharing of inappropriate content or content that is harmful or meant to alienate and harrass any other member of our community.

There will be a dedicated time during Cancervention to engage in the Slack channels – during this time, each channel will have a facilitator from an AYA cancer organization sharing prompt questions and moderating discussion. Outside of this time, the space will still exist for non-facilitated conversation and direct messaging. There will be volunteer monitors in Slack throughout the conference checking in to make sure that everyone is respecting our guidelines for engagement.

Even within the young adult cancer community, there are so many different factors that impact your cancer experience and we know we haven’t captured all of them here. Please email us at YACCtoUS@yacancerconnection.org if you would like to propose another Slack channel topic.

Slack has a robust website where you will most likely find easy answers to all of your questions! Click here for the Slack Help Channel.