I built best practices for supporting volunteers and a 3-tiered strategy for handling sensitive, harassing, or violent/threatening content

This is the strategy I used, and I recommended to a lot of campaigns, and I am really proud of it and will bring with me in all organizing. https://twitter.com/OrganizerMemes/status/1324196799003848705

First thing, it's really important to be honest that your volunteers are going to receive triggering, upsetting messages. The best thing you can do for them is have a set plan in place for handling those. It needs to be written down. Unwritten strategy on this doesn't help.

Secondly, as organizers it's really easy to get desensitized to brutal things being spewed at you.

You should never expect any vol to not be upset. Especially first time vols. So treat every volunteer like these messages were horrifying to them, and if you're overly safe, great

We do not know what our volunteers have experienced, we do not know if they're accustomed to having horrifying things said to them, we do not know if there are struggles with their mental health

Which is why these are so important.

Thirdly! These are the guidelines I wrote for my team of moderators, who supported 10,000 texters.

here's my tiers :
1. sensitive content
2. harassing/offensive content
3. violent/threatening content

1. Sensitive messages - QAnon theories, etc.

No one should ask a volunteer to engage with a conversation they don't feel comfortable asking every volunteer to engage with, and you should not ask any volunteer to engage with things that have a high likelihood of triggering them

2. Harassing or offensive messages

Nudity, slurs, bigotry. Again, be specific! Gray areas here doesn't help. Be distinct and clear with what volunteers should do and let them KNOW that you support them and they do not need to tolerate bigotry or harassment toward them.

3. Violent or threatening messages

Volunteers receive death threats. It's horrifying but we HAVE to be honest about it and know how to address it. There are 2 critical steps here. The first is dealing from a security standpoint, so getting all the info you need.

3.2 - the second is making really, really sure that the volunteer is okay and feels supported.

People will feel like they HAVE to keep pushing and it's so important to let them know that they CAN pause, that they CAN breathe, that you see their humanity and care about them.

The gist is
- have a written, concrete plan for your volunteers that your organizers and volunteer leads are trained on
- remember that your volunteers may not be as accustomed to death threats as you are.
- people remember how they FELT. and they should feel seen and supported.

I built this as an organizer with severe c-PTSD who was regularly triggered by messages as a volunteer before I became an organizer. This is what I needed and what other folks I know with PTSD needed.

Know that this is about accessibility.

#CriptheVote

(also really grateful for my coworkers and supervisors who supported my strategy)

In some of my volunteer roles, I took every message I saw that involved threats or harassment to volunteers because I didn't trust anyone else to support vols.

As an organizer, I got to build and train folks so that I KNEW that EVERY volunteer would be supported in these moments

build so that every volunteer is supported.