
I recently worked with Hemihelp (now part of Contact) to help them train volunteer moderators for their peer support group on Facebook.
The group was established in 2007 and became more active in 2011. It has over 5,000 members and over 11,000 interactions each month. It seems to be a strong community with a lot of peer support offered (there is little need for moderator input on this front). There is debate among members over the nature of the group and how it should be used.
I offered some advice around consultation with the community to help ensure the guidelines and moderation approach are based on the needs of the group. This can also be a really good way to introduce and embed changes.
Recruiting volunteers
Hemihelp planned to recruit volunteer moderators to help them manage the group moderation during office hours. I am usually a little wary about using volunteer moderators especially ones who are still active members of the group but this can depend very much on the community in question.
Initial response to the advert was quite low. This was perhaps understandable given the nature of the group (busy parents from all over the UK, many of whom couldn’t make it to London for training). I recommended that they emphasise the transferable skills volunteers might gain as well as the opportunity to help the community. This helped them recruit a few additional trainees but I think they would need to offer comprehensive online training to really increase their numbers.
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