In response to the research findings delivered by a UCL student researcher who focused on understanding and improving moderation of self-harm on our discussion boards, we’ve taken steps to strengthen moderation, support for volunteers, and to improve the community experience (Perowne & Gutman, 2024):
- To improve moderator support, we have strengthened on-call staff support for moderators during evening shifts. We have also reviewed and enhanced debrief processes to better support volunteers after shifts.
- To create shared expectations around moderation, volunteer roles have been clarified through creating a clearer role description for Boards Moderators to better define the role
- To address vagueness within our guidelines, community guidelines were reviewed and improved with staff and Community Champions
- Several ideas for longer-term improvements the team would like to implement that need funding were identified such as 'watched words' feature that would flag potential safeguarding concerns or guideline breaches
Anecdotal evidence suggests that these changes have been welcomed by volunteers and made a positive difference to their experience.
