Post by Veritee on Oct 7, 2005 12:45:14 GMT
Forum Advisors
We have decided to add a new category of membership, that of Forum Advisor.
To and extent this is an honorary post as you will have to be asked, but to be an advisor you will also have to have proven commitment to the forum over a period of time and to have been a moderator for at least 6 months and in this time been involved in the day to day running of the forum
The reason for this is has become obvious to me ( and a member of my management committee with whom I have discussed it fully) and some of the moderators who have done this job for some time now that being a moderator is not for most something you can sustain forever.
There seems to be a peak time in your illness and recovery when you have the drive and the time necessary to devote to the forum a considerable amount of your spare time, emotional involvement and sheer effort and work on a daily basis - and being an effective and active moderator does in fact require quite a high level of commitment and an awful lot of your time!
This right time to be a moderator seems to happen when people are either at the stage of having suffered for many years and in a way have learnt to function (live with) PNI but are not yet well and therefore know an awful lot about PNI and about coping with it in order to get on with your life
When in this position you can find being a moderator gives you purpose and a structure to your life and shows you that despite your PNI you have something to offer a lot of people
Plus looking at PNI objectively form time to time from the outside in order to support others can be therapeutic for you and help PNI to be in perspective in your life.
Another group who find that they have the commitment and time to be a moderator are women who are well on their way to recovery but not quite there and again to look at from the other side to support others will be helpful to them and assist in getting the whole PNI experience into perspective.
Usually if you are in this position you have the time as perhaps you are not yet back to work or not yet fully recovered enough to pick up all the threads of your life or start new activities, but you are beginning to need something worthwhile to do.
I know that there are other reasons why someone might be ready and able to do the moderators job, but these are the main ones I see and of course you can find even if you are a moderator and it has been working for you, that you need a complete break or it is not longer helpful to you to have the role.
This can be because you simply no longer have the time - i.e. new baby, back to work, new activates or you are better and feel you need to move on from focusing on PNI all the time or you are not better but again you need to focus away from PNI as it is not helping you anymore to do this.
Being a moderator only works if it is helpful to the moderator too.
So with this in mind we realises that people need to be able to leave the role and while for some who the forum has not been a huge part of their lives and they have not been a moderator for that long , this might just be about realising that it is OK to leave when you need to.
But5 for others that the forum has been such a big part of their lives and they have put such a colossal amount of effort into it, we felt that these moderators should be able to move on to a different role rather than just suddenly leave
Both because there involvement in the forum in a role whereby they were part of the management of the forum has been such an important part of their lives but more to the point they have been very important to the forum!
Therefore we decided to have another category of forum membership which we are going to call ‘Forum Advisors’
What Do Forum Advisors Do?
Basically as an advisor you no longer have the expectation that you come on the forum everyday or that you post or support others, as by the time you become a forum advisor you have probably done this for several months if not years and posted thousands of posts, and to continue this is no longer helpful to you in terms of focusing outside your PNI and picking up the pieces of your life
However you can of course come on here for your own ongoing support as you will still have issues and adjustments to make
But that because you have been around on the forum for so long you know exactly how it works and you will be available to forum members to help them if they have any specific difficulties or concerns in their use of the forum - but more to the point you can advise me!
Wendybell, Fran, Susie, and other long term members in the past have been fundamental in the smooth running of this forum in giving me a core group to consult if I have issues to look at situations to sort out or decisions to make about the structure of the forum. And while I have a PNI.ORG advisory group and now a management committee, the people on this do not post on the forum, and while many do do other forums of support work and counselling, they really understand the intricacies of the forum and how the support works using such a new method.
Our support group and other online support groups who are more than a passing message board and use the media of a board to offer some very serious support to a specific group of people within a spectrum of a specific issue, usually emotional or mental but it can be a physical issues – are really in the forefront of doing ground breaking work, on using the internet for more than just a giant encyclopaedia, recreational tool, a personal communicator or a games area.
We are one of the first to use the internet seriously as a therapeutic tool, a method that can be used to offer support and even at times therapy and counselling
As far as this forum is concerned this is therapy and counselling, if it can be called this in the form of self help and mutual support but the methods we are using and expanding our knowledge of every day can so easily be used for all sorts of support, and I believe it can be used even for such things as professional counselling and psychotherapy.
I truly believe that we are really part of formulating a new form of support and therapeutic tool using the internet, which unique to all other forms of therapeutic practice is available on demand, when people require it and in their own homes where they feel secure and safe.
I am sorry if the above sounds too grand for a humble support forum – but I really believe that this is true.
The internet in a very short time has penetrated every part of our lives but one part that I believe will grow and has not even began to be explored is the internet as a form of personal and group interaction. We are not only running a support forum for PNI but experimenting with a method of therapeutic support that will one day I feel be a branch of the theory of groups and personal interaction which will have its own theories, professional skills and practise.
But at the moment we are inventing it as we go along and learning wht works and what does not and I have found the support of my moderatos group invaluable in doing this.
We have found together that the support forum seems very simple from the outside but when you are on the inside it is in fact very complicated.
We have also found that it has its own set of rules about how to manage the forum and situations within it which work and if you deviate from them, the forum falls over, we have also found that there is a processes going on for the forum itself and for everyone within the forum that while are at times simular to other group and interpersonal processes, they are also t the same time uniquely different and unique to this method of offering personal support
Online support of the kind this forum offers is I have come to realise can be as effective and for some more effective, than face to face counselling or group support it is also entirely different.
It is such a new forum of support (and so different from other forms of support even telephone counselling) that nothing has ever been written about it and the processes involved have not been yet examined and documented
So currently to understand it you really do have to have lived it, and for quite a while with a great deal of commitment, observed it from within and been a part of it.
As a group some of us have become quite skilled in predicting the outcome of issues on the forum sometimes even predicting the issues ourselves before they happen and in formulating a reaction to processes within the forum which will be both helpful to the forum and those within it.
So over the last year I have become use to doing this as a group and I feel the forum works so much more effectively when run in this way by a group, so by creating a category of Forum Advisor, this forum management group can continue but without the individuals feeling under pressure that they have to play a moderators role in the forum when perhaps the time for them to do this on a personal level has gone by.
Criteria for Becoming a Forum Advisor
Obviously there has to be some sort of criteria for being such an advisor on the forum.
Ultimately the decision does rest with me as administrator in consultation with my management etc but there has to be bottom line criteria for being eligible to be an advisor.
Obviously it would not be feasible for absolutely everyone who is a moderator to become a Forum Advisor, as some moderators are only a moderator for a relatively short period of time and through choice do not become involved in the running of the forum and therefore do not really get to understand the processes and issues involved .
We have thought about it and for now our draft guidelines are the following:
1. to have been a member of the forum for at least a year
2. to have been a moderator on the forum for at least 6 months
3. to have posted over 500 posts
4. to have been involved in the day to day running of the forum
5. to show an ongoing commitment to the forum and its aims and objectives
6. to shoe that you understand some of the processes and dynamics involved in running a support/therapeutic forum
We have decided to add a new category of membership, that of Forum Advisor.
To and extent this is an honorary post as you will have to be asked, but to be an advisor you will also have to have proven commitment to the forum over a period of time and to have been a moderator for at least 6 months and in this time been involved in the day to day running of the forum
The reason for this is has become obvious to me ( and a member of my management committee with whom I have discussed it fully) and some of the moderators who have done this job for some time now that being a moderator is not for most something you can sustain forever.
There seems to be a peak time in your illness and recovery when you have the drive and the time necessary to devote to the forum a considerable amount of your spare time, emotional involvement and sheer effort and work on a daily basis - and being an effective and active moderator does in fact require quite a high level of commitment and an awful lot of your time!
This right time to be a moderator seems to happen when people are either at the stage of having suffered for many years and in a way have learnt to function (live with) PNI but are not yet well and therefore know an awful lot about PNI and about coping with it in order to get on with your life
When in this position you can find being a moderator gives you purpose and a structure to your life and shows you that despite your PNI you have something to offer a lot of people
Plus looking at PNI objectively form time to time from the outside in order to support others can be therapeutic for you and help PNI to be in perspective in your life.
Another group who find that they have the commitment and time to be a moderator are women who are well on their way to recovery but not quite there and again to look at from the other side to support others will be helpful to them and assist in getting the whole PNI experience into perspective.
Usually if you are in this position you have the time as perhaps you are not yet back to work or not yet fully recovered enough to pick up all the threads of your life or start new activities, but you are beginning to need something worthwhile to do.
I know that there are other reasons why someone might be ready and able to do the moderators job, but these are the main ones I see and of course you can find even if you are a moderator and it has been working for you, that you need a complete break or it is not longer helpful to you to have the role.
This can be because you simply no longer have the time - i.e. new baby, back to work, new activates or you are better and feel you need to move on from focusing on PNI all the time or you are not better but again you need to focus away from PNI as it is not helping you anymore to do this.
Being a moderator only works if it is helpful to the moderator too.
So with this in mind we realises that people need to be able to leave the role and while for some who the forum has not been a huge part of their lives and they have not been a moderator for that long , this might just be about realising that it is OK to leave when you need to.
But5 for others that the forum has been such a big part of their lives and they have put such a colossal amount of effort into it, we felt that these moderators should be able to move on to a different role rather than just suddenly leave
Both because there involvement in the forum in a role whereby they were part of the management of the forum has been such an important part of their lives but more to the point they have been very important to the forum!
Therefore we decided to have another category of forum membership which we are going to call ‘Forum Advisors’
What Do Forum Advisors Do?
Basically as an advisor you no longer have the expectation that you come on the forum everyday or that you post or support others, as by the time you become a forum advisor you have probably done this for several months if not years and posted thousands of posts, and to continue this is no longer helpful to you in terms of focusing outside your PNI and picking up the pieces of your life
However you can of course come on here for your own ongoing support as you will still have issues and adjustments to make
But that because you have been around on the forum for so long you know exactly how it works and you will be available to forum members to help them if they have any specific difficulties or concerns in their use of the forum - but more to the point you can advise me!
Wendybell, Fran, Susie, and other long term members in the past have been fundamental in the smooth running of this forum in giving me a core group to consult if I have issues to look at situations to sort out or decisions to make about the structure of the forum. And while I have a PNI.ORG advisory group and now a management committee, the people on this do not post on the forum, and while many do do other forums of support work and counselling, they really understand the intricacies of the forum and how the support works using such a new method.
Our support group and other online support groups who are more than a passing message board and use the media of a board to offer some very serious support to a specific group of people within a spectrum of a specific issue, usually emotional or mental but it can be a physical issues – are really in the forefront of doing ground breaking work, on using the internet for more than just a giant encyclopaedia, recreational tool, a personal communicator or a games area.
We are one of the first to use the internet seriously as a therapeutic tool, a method that can be used to offer support and even at times therapy and counselling
As far as this forum is concerned this is therapy and counselling, if it can be called this in the form of self help and mutual support but the methods we are using and expanding our knowledge of every day can so easily be used for all sorts of support, and I believe it can be used even for such things as professional counselling and psychotherapy.
I truly believe that we are really part of formulating a new form of support and therapeutic tool using the internet, which unique to all other forms of therapeutic practice is available on demand, when people require it and in their own homes where they feel secure and safe.
I am sorry if the above sounds too grand for a humble support forum – but I really believe that this is true.
The internet in a very short time has penetrated every part of our lives but one part that I believe will grow and has not even began to be explored is the internet as a form of personal and group interaction. We are not only running a support forum for PNI but experimenting with a method of therapeutic support that will one day I feel be a branch of the theory of groups and personal interaction which will have its own theories, professional skills and practise.
But at the moment we are inventing it as we go along and learning wht works and what does not and I have found the support of my moderatos group invaluable in doing this.
We have found together that the support forum seems very simple from the outside but when you are on the inside it is in fact very complicated.
We have also found that it has its own set of rules about how to manage the forum and situations within it which work and if you deviate from them, the forum falls over, we have also found that there is a processes going on for the forum itself and for everyone within the forum that while are at times simular to other group and interpersonal processes, they are also t the same time uniquely different and unique to this method of offering personal support
Online support of the kind this forum offers is I have come to realise can be as effective and for some more effective, than face to face counselling or group support it is also entirely different.
It is such a new forum of support (and so different from other forms of support even telephone counselling) that nothing has ever been written about it and the processes involved have not been yet examined and documented
So currently to understand it you really do have to have lived it, and for quite a while with a great deal of commitment, observed it from within and been a part of it.
As a group some of us have become quite skilled in predicting the outcome of issues on the forum sometimes even predicting the issues ourselves before they happen and in formulating a reaction to processes within the forum which will be both helpful to the forum and those within it.
So over the last year I have become use to doing this as a group and I feel the forum works so much more effectively when run in this way by a group, so by creating a category of Forum Advisor, this forum management group can continue but without the individuals feeling under pressure that they have to play a moderators role in the forum when perhaps the time for them to do this on a personal level has gone by.
Criteria for Becoming a Forum Advisor
Obviously there has to be some sort of criteria for being such an advisor on the forum.
Ultimately the decision does rest with me as administrator in consultation with my management etc but there has to be bottom line criteria for being eligible to be an advisor.
Obviously it would not be feasible for absolutely everyone who is a moderator to become a Forum Advisor, as some moderators are only a moderator for a relatively short period of time and through choice do not become involved in the running of the forum and therefore do not really get to understand the processes and issues involved .
We have thought about it and for now our draft guidelines are the following:
1. to have been a member of the forum for at least a year
2. to have been a moderator on the forum for at least 6 months
3. to have posted over 500 posts
4. to have been involved in the day to day running of the forum
5. to show an ongoing commitment to the forum and its aims and objectives
6. to shoe that you understand some of the processes and dynamics involved in running a support/therapeutic forum
