Digital Community Liaisons, formerly known as moderators, are the beating heart of Signpost. The role of digital community liaisons encompasses three main elements:
- Guiding people through information
- Building trust through good communication
- Capturing trends to make information responsive.
DCLs communicate with our users on social media everyday - listening to them and providing them with individualized answers to their questions. As a DCL you are not expected to find answers to these questions on your own! We provide the information as a team and you pass it on. Your primary sources of information are materials developed by the Signpost Instance that you work for. This could include the:
- Website
- Service Map
- Blog
- Past social media posts
- Answers and information given to you by your colleagues in the Editorial team
- Information from official sources such as the UN or national government (ex. COVID-19 info from the WHO)
| Digital Community Liaisons WILL: | |
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Point people in the right direction of available services such as healthcare, legal, asylum, etc. The service map should be a main source of this. |
| Direct people to information on our website, log, service map or past Facebook posts. | |
| Apply the techniques of Psychological First Aid (PFA) when communicating with users. Show people they are being listened to | |
| Answer basic questions on topics such as cash, education, legal aid, services | |
| Clarify and reiterate information in our posts | |
| Monitor posts for abusive/offensive comments and handle them appropriately. (See section further down on this) | |
| Feedback to the Signpost team on refugees' concerns, discussions and rumors (what people are talking about online!) | |
| Pass cases requiring protection intervention (e.g. violence towards self or others, suspected child abuse or GB, or where someone is repeatedly unable to access a service) immediately to your supervisor or a specialist and follow instructions on how to answer them. |
| Digital Community Liaisons Must NOT: | |
| Send people information or resources outside of information that has been vetted by your editorial manager. | |
| Provide any legal advice about individual cases. | |
| Provide therapy or specialized counseling to address mental health and psychosocial support needs. | |
| Suggest to people what you (the moderator) might do in a situation. | |
| Express judgment about someone's chosen actions. | |
| Investigate whether what someone is telling us is true. | |
| Ask any probing questions. In particular, don't ask any questions that aren't strictly necessary in order to understand what information is needed or ask questions that could be seen as accusatory, such as questions starting with "why/how come". | |
| Discuss social media conversations with anyone outside of the Signpost team. | |
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Give out personal information about themselves. |
Getting Started
When you first start as a DCL you must read through all of the content on our website, blog and social media history (including posts/videos spanning back 6 months). Your supervisor can give you guidance on where to start and will run training sessions with you. This review will give you a broad overview of the information that we have ready to share (and the information that can be sent to people in response to their questions). It is your duty to keep up to date with all the new information that we put out on an ongoing basis.
As you get the hang of moderation you will learn that the majority of questions received from users can be answered using Signpost information resources. However, some questions may be more complicated, sensitive, or cover areas that the editorial team has not yet developed information on.
If you are ever unsure about the answer to a question or how best to answer it, especially as you are learning how to moderate, then you must ask the editorial team.