About Hacktive Labs

Why veterans

Military service issues people a social structure along with everything else. You live beside the same people, you depend on them for things that matter, and somebody notices when you are not yourself. Then the structure ends on a specific date, and what is left is a civilian expectation that adults will maintain their own friendships by choosing to reach out. Plenty of veterans do exactly that. Plenty of others find that the part of life which used to be automatic has quietly become optional, and optional things slide.

The consequences are measurable, and we go through them on the Why peers page rather than gesturing at them here. The short version is that isolation is common in this population, it is entangled with the outcomes everyone is trying to prevent, and the specific obstacle between a veteran and a conversation is usually nothing more complicated than who has to place the call.

What guides the design

Most of what is distinctive about this program exists because of a specific way the ordinary version fails somebody:

• An unanswered call lands like a verdict, so the system only connects people who both answered. Nobody dials into a void, and nobody's silence gets taken personally, because nobody knows who else was called.
• Being checked up on can feel like being managed, so nothing here interrogates you. Missing a call costs nothing and starts nothing. If you do want somebody in your corner to know you are showing up, you can name a trusted contact who receives only the participation updates you chose to share, and you can change or remove that at any time.
• Handing your phone number to a stranger is a real barrier, so calls are bridged through the service. You go by the name you choose, numbers are never shown, and staying in touch off the platform is a decision two people make together.
• Answering into silence would be the worst possible outcome, so backup members stand ready, and when a connection falls through the system works to get the person still holding the phone to somebody else.

What we are doing now

Hacktive Labs is an early stage organization, and the current work is the unglamorous kind that early stages are made of:

• Program design. Shaping the peer call program for veterans specifically: the one to one calls, group circles for veteran organizations, and the privacy rules that make both safe to join.
• Listening. Conversations with veterans, peer specialists, and staff at organizations that already serve them, so the program fits how veterans actually live rather than how software wishes they did.
• Preparing pilots. Building relationships with veteran service organizations, vet centers, county veteran service offices, and veteran focused nonprofits, to run the first pilots and measure them honestly.

The service is free to the veterans who use it, and keeping it free is most of the reason this organization is a nonprofit.