Moderators
Prerequisites
- Membership: You must be a Braver Angels member. Please sign up to become a member.
- Group Facilitation Experience: This means that you are comfortable with group process, and that you are able to create a supportive environment while also enforcing ground rules and upholding the structure of the workshop. It’s not enough if your experience has been working with groups as a manager of work teams. In Braver Angels Workshops, you have no authority over the people that attend and you can’t “manage” them. Work as a therapist is also not sufficient. The skills in a client relationship with an individual, a couple or a family are not the same as group facilitation experience. Some therapists have experience in group therapy, which may qualify.
- Emotional Readiness: This work is about depolarization, and that can be very emotional. We need people who have respect for the other side, and who won’t respond to getting their buttons pushed by someone of a different political persuasion. In the moderator role, you must be neutral and you have to create a space where everyone feels respected, where everyone in the room says that the moderator wasn’t emotionally reactive to either side or wasn’t trying to “correct” either side. You cannot see the other side as deplorable or ignorant or deserving of pity. You would have trouble doing this work if your goal is to “enlighten” the other side. In short, you cannot be emotionally triggered by people who have political views that are very different from your own.
- Workshop Attendance: Because we want you to have a feel for Braver Angels workshops before you become a moderator, it is necessary that you participate in a workshop before submitting your application. The workshop can be local or national, online or in-person. Any of our workshops (not debates) would qualify. To sign up to attend a Braver Angels Workshop, please see our current list of events or contact your local BA Alliance.
Get Started
By: Bill Doherty
Step 1
Listen to Audio Intro
Hear from Braver Angels co-founder Bill Doherty about the application process.
Step 3
Complete the Training
Once you are accepted, you will be given access to our Moderator Training Website to complete a number of training activities (10-15 hours total). After completing those required activities, you will then attend a Moderator Orientation Meeting (held over Zoom) where you will have the opportunity to speak with Bill Doherty and fellow moderators-in-training about moderator expectations.
Step 4
Complete a Qualification Session
You may then choose to go through a Phase 1 Qualification Session to qualify as an In-Person Moderator (delivering in-person workshops only) or you can complete about 2 hours of additional training and go through a Phase 2 Qualification Session to qualify as an Online and In-Person Moderator (delivering workshops either in-person or online).
Step 5
Stay Up to Date
All BA Moderators are expected to stay up to date on new workshop offerings and review/refresh themselves on the content of any workshop they are going to moderate.
FAQ
Yes, there is no charge for the training. We also expect people to do the workshop without charging.
Once you’re accepted, you’ll become a part of the Braver Angels moderator community and your name will be added to the list of Qualified Moderators. The most successful (and busiest!) moderators are those who actively reach out to their local and state alliances and/or network with BA members that they meet through virtual events. You are encouraged to join the monthly Moderator Forums to learn from–and with–other moderators. Upcoming Moderator Forums are announced via email to all qualified BA moderators and moderators-in-training.
The training is self-paced and most people find that it takes 10-15 hours to complete.