Dementia UK social media Moderation training

Bespoke moderation training for specialist charity

Specialist dementia nursing charity, Dementia UK enlisted StrawberrySocial to design and deliver bespoke online training for five internal teams focused on strengthening best practice moderation skills, engagement techniques, and wellbeing awareness.

The challenge

As Dementia UK’s fundraising and community-building activities expanded online, many staff found themselves:

• Moderating ad comments and Facebook Group discussions without formal moderation training
• Navigating difficult or sensitive conversations in real time
• Balancing proactive engagement with safeguarding and brand risk management
• Managing their own emotional wellbeing amid potentially distressing content

Key objectives

Ultimately, the client sought to empower staff to tackle difficult conversations online, develop moderation and engagement skills, raise awareness of the particular challenges faced by moderators and equip them with practical self-care strategies to safeguard their wellbeing while moderating.

Our approach

Our experienced moderation trainer, Sarah, delivered a series of two engaging, interactive 2-hour sessions to a total of 22 participants across five staff teams (Individual Giving, Legacies, Virtual Events, Community and Challenge Events and Marketing and Communications), throughout the spring 2025.

Modular, tailored sessions

Four core modules were flexibly adapted to each group’s needs:

1. The Social Media Landscape & Role of the Moderator
2. Escalations, Risk Management & Safeguarding
3. Engagement Techniques & Community Building
4. Compassion Fatigue, Wellbeing & Boundaries

Interactive, real world scenarios

Through interactive exercises, group discussions and role-plays, participants put best-practice moderation into action. 

• Group discussions on grey-area comment moderation (remove, escalate, respond)
• Role-plays to practice tone, empathy, and escalation protocols
• Breakouts focused on Facebook Group community nurturing exercises
  

Ongoing collaboration

StrawberrySocial and Dementia UK worked together throughout the project, through the use of shared planning documents, pre-training briefs to cater to differing skill levels, and flexible scheduling to fit around the client’s event-driven workloads.

Key outcomes

Following the moderation training, Dementia UK teams reported clear benefits in three key areas:

• Increased confidence: All 5 groups reported feeling better equipped to handle difficult or negative comments and to identify when to escalate.
• Practical takeaways: Feedback from the teams highlighted the value of clear escalation guidelines and real-world practice scenarios.
• Wellbeing awareness: Participants left with personalised strategies to manage compassion fatigue and maintain boundaries.

Participant feedback

“The session on creating engaged communities was particularly helpful.”

“I found the moderation training very useful; it helped answer a lot of unanswered questions I had about social media moderation that I will take on board going forward. I also liked that it was interactive which made it more engaging.”

“I’ll be putting the engagement techniques into practice right away, and I feel confident to deal with any difficulties.”