Is this your first visit to Widowed Village?

Widowed Village ("WidVille" for short) is an online community that is open to the public. Most of the site is open to Google. Therefore members should use pseudonyms or "handles." Read more about privacy below and here. The Chat room, of course, is accessible only to members.

If you'd like to join our community, just apply at the form that appears on the top of nearly every page. You'll see that we ask a lot of personal questions; this information is used to verify that only widowed people join the site. In most cases, we approve US members within 24 hours; if you do not hear back from us within that time, please check your spam filter; our volunteers may have asked you for more information. All of this information is kept confidential and we do not share it.

WidVille is a program of Soaring Spirits, a U.S. non profit organization.

We want the site to be easy to use but we know it's not "second nature" to share this type of information online. If you're not familiar with Facebook, you might be confused by Widowed Village and the many (and wonderful) ways this place presents for you to connect with people. Here's what you need to get started:

1. About peer support

2. Your privacy

3. Quick guide to what you can do on Widowed Village

4. Terms of Service and Village Values

1. About peer support

Widowed Village connects peers with each other for friendship and sharing. The moderators, administrators, and others involved in running this site are widowed people like you. Peer support is an excellent, social way to learn more about living with loss and gain energy and ideas for your path to a new life. We've been there, and it is so nice to have company.

But — we're here as friends, not doctors or nurses, financial or legal professionals, social workers or therapists or psychiatrists. We're not "grief experts" (we're not sure anyone is).

Please don't construe anything you read here as medical, legal, or otherwise expert advice. Don't disregard any expert's advice or take action as a result of what you read here. If you are coping with another serious problem in your life — like substance abuse, a health crisis, legal problems, or anything else that is affecting your daily functioning — please take care of yourself first and then join us for companionship.

As a peer, member, and citizen of this Village, you play a valuable role, too. Please read our terms of service and Village Values to find out how.

2. About your privacy

Widowed Village is a public site where you are protected by your anonymity. Please don't use your real full name as your screen name (username). Our privacy controls work in a similar fashion to those on Facebook and can be located under the "My Widville" tab. It's important to us that you are both aware AND in control of who sees what, and the controls are nearly infinitely customizable. More about your privacy….

3. Quick guide to what you can do on Widowed Village

Here are some of the ways to share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences on Widville. (Nearly every "field" will accept images, music, and video if you'd like to share those).

• Forums — These open discussions are the heart of Widowed Village. You can get a sense of what happens on this site by reading through a couple entire conversations. If you have something to say, "reply" to a question or to a comment that someone else left. Either way, you'll now be notified (via email OR on your wall) when anyone else comments so you can follow the discussion: you don't have to check in each time in order to stay in the loop.
  
• Chat — The Chat room is the best way to talk with someone right now, back and forth, but you're limited to who is awake at this moment. This means the deeper, longer conversations happen in discussions. A lot of people find that Chat is satisfying and immediate and a good way to talk through a tough day and even make connections that last.
  
• Groups — On this site, we'd like you to join the Groups that describe when you were born, when your loss occurred, and other factors that may help you relate to others. Then, you'll start to recognize people's pictures and names on other parts of the site, and you may even want to "friend" them. In most cases, there isn't much more activity taking place in the groups… it's just a way to identify each other. Some of the groups require an invitation, like those for parenting -- please email me at widville@gmail.com with your requests.
  
• Friends — You don't HAVE to make Friends here, and you can still participate in discussions. But many Widville members have opted to show their photos and videos only to "friends," so you'll have a richer experience and find it easier to "filter out" info that you aren't interested in if you "friend" folks. You might choose to friend people you want to hear from, or those you've already interacted with, or just the people that you love the most. In general, if your privacy settings are the way you like them, you can have a lot of Widville friends without risk.
  

4. Terms of service and Village Values

You can read the basics of "how we get along" here and read the legalese here.