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Published: September 22, 2020
Updated: August 15, 2024

Thanks for helping!

Every now and then helpers support the work of Lead Safe Mama on social media (and elsewhere, too). I’ve written this as a guide for people who have offered to come on board as Lead Safe Mama Helpers…

Below are some details about how this works — and specific guidelines for folks who want to participate in this work by helping answer questions and respond to inquiries on Lead Safe Mama social media pages as well as on this website.

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Details 

1. Some helpers volunteer their time. (Yay! Thank you!)
2. Some helpers are paid for their time, too!
3. Lead Safe Mama, LLC is committed to a minimum wage of $20/hour for starting pay for any paid helpers (with pay raises and additional compensation whenever possible). Lead Safe Mama, LLC requires and has a written subcontractor agreement for all paid helpers to sign before starting paid work.
4. Lead Safe Mama, LLC is also committed to (whenever possible) hiring mothers returning to the workforce after taking “time off” to raise their children. 
5. Lead Safe Mama, LLC is also committed to hiring parents (mothers and fathers and others!) of Lead-poisoned children, whenever possible.

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Guidelines for Helpers on the main Lead Safe Mama Facebook page:

1. First and foremost, all interactions with readers, friends and followers should be:
   • patient
   • polite
   • respectful
   • and not at all political in nature
     • This issue impacts everyone — regardless of their politics!
2. At no point should any helpers offer any medical advice (and when appropriate, responses should include clear statements like “Lead Safe Mama, LLC is not a medical or healthcare provider, so please follow up with your doctor or medical professional for medical advice”).
3. When people have questions on the Facebook page, the main goal for Lead Safe Mama helpers is directing them to the most appropriate article on this website, whichever best answers their question(s).
4. Generally, all questions should be answered with a link to a relevant article on this website.  
   • For example: “Here’s an article Tamara wrote about that… < insert link here >.”
5. There are over 4,000 articles on this website… this means there are articles that answer nearly every question, however, if you cannot find an answer please direct readers to the Lead Safe Mama website menu — linked at the top of every page of the website and also in our Instagram and Facebook bios.
   • Please familiarize yourself with the website menu.
   • Please take a look at all of the buttons on the menu and the index for the menu so you can better help direct people to resources.
6. If helpers cannot find an answer to a reader’s question, please contact Tamara (or A.J. or Carissa) and ask for help to point you in the right direction (toward the article with the best/ most appropriate answer).
7. If a reader comments that they just found out a child or other family member is Lead-poisoned, please share a link to the film with them as a good place to start. The button for the film is pinned to the top of the website menu.
   • Please encourage people in this situation to watch the entire film, (without children underfoot if at all possible) — as it answers most questions for those new to the concern.
8. If a reader asks about a specific brand or type of product, please share the category link for that product with them and encourage them to scroll through all the related articles for that category (which can provide a broader sense of context and similar items I have tested). Here’s an example of a category link (for the keyword “Jewelry”): https://tamararubin.com/category/jewelry/
9. Alternately (to #8), there are now more than 30 category overview articles, and if the question can be answered with one of those, please share that link as well as the category link. These pieces include topics like “Clear Glass,” “Glass Bottles,” “Made in France,” “Mexican Pottery,” and “Hoses.” Here’s a link to all the active category pages: https://tamararubin.com/category/summary-post-by-theme-2020/
10. If a reader asks for a product recommendation, please do one (or more) of the following things:
    • point them to the Lead Safe Mama shopping site — www.ShopLeadSafeMama.com (which is pinned via a pink button in the header on the top of every page on the website) 
    • get them the link for the “Safer Choices” article for that category of product 
    • get them the link for the category summary article for that product category 
11. Above all, when commenting on behalf of Lead Safe Mama, be professional:
    • please refrain from sharing your own personal anecdotes, experiences, opinions, or recommendations.
    • We work hard to make sure our content is strictly science-based, factual, and as free as possible of personal bias.
    • So keep it simple — just help direct people to the information they are looking for on this website.
12. In response to any inquiries or comments that include Amazon links shared by readers… since one goal is for this work to pay for itself, and since affiliate income helps cover the cost of the work, please provide, whenever possible, Lead Safe Mama’s affiliate links (supplied by Tamara) to replace the link posted by the reader.
    • These can include a comment like “While this is not a product that Tamara specifically recommends, here is Lead Safe Mama’s affiliate link for the product you have asked about < link >.”
13. In response to any type of question, if you need a specific affiliate link to share, please ask Tamara to get you that link as well.
14. Please refrain from editorializing or offering personal advice.
    • It’s often not practical to answer many questions with a short answer, which is why we have taken the time to write detailed answers to all questions and published them in articles on the website.
    • For example, the answer to the question “Can I use a LeadCheck® swab to test my dishes?” is not a simple answer and the article discusses the “why” in detail.
15. You can answer questions from your main personal profile OR you can create a LeadSafe profile (for example, Mary LeadSafe Smith) to help identify yourself as a helper!
16. If you answer a question as a moderator on the page (vs. under your own Facebook profile) please sign your initials to the response — that way folks know it is not Tamara responding directly.
17. Helpers can keep a list of questions that have not been answered (so we can write more in the future), but please don’t worry if you cannot answer a question — with hundreds (thousands really now!) of questions coming through the Facebook page every day, on many days, it’s simply not humanly possible to answer them all.

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Specific Instructions for New Helpers:

1. Observing all the above guidelines, please review/ familiarize yourself with recent articles and on each day you choose to work — read all the comments on recent social media posts to see if there are any unanswered questions you can help with.
2. If a comment contains a question or mentions something you know is addressed in a specific article, please go grab the article link from the website (here), copy it and paste it in response to their question (on Facebook) or give the commenter brief instructions on how to find the article (on Instagram).
3. Take your time and make sure you haven’t missed a comment from another helper who already answered the question!
4. There are unanswered questions going back months… so please start with the most recent ones and keep going until you run out of time!
5. Please make sure the answer you choose is truly optimally relevant to the question asked; it is really important our readers feel (and are) heard!
6. You can also help by going to the Lead Safe Mama Facebook page and looking for posts made directly by readers there.
   • This section is sometimes hard to find. 
   • Once you find that section of the Facebook page, you can answer questions there in the same way (ideally with links from the website that answer their questions).
7. It’s most efficient to do this work (whether volunteer or paid) on a desktop or laptop computer (vs. via a smartphone), both for ease and speed of accurate typing, so you can easily switch back and forth between the Facebook page and the website (to copy and paste links). We request paid helpers use a desktop or laptop computer for this work whenever possible. 

That’s all I can think of right now!

Please let me know if there are any points I have not covered that you have questions about.

If you are interested in paid work for helping in this way, please let me know and I will be in touch when an opportunity opens up. Most paid helpers contribute five to 10 hours a week (one or two hours each day), which makes it easy to fit into most schedules!

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A note to all the Lead Safe Mama helpers… 

Thank you for being here.

The work you do is critical.

As of 2024 we have seven people helping in various capacities:

1. Carissa
2. Katie
3. Sarah
4. AJ
5. Len
6. Phil
7. & Ainslie

This critical support makes it possible for us to reach more than two million people each year (the number of unique individuals who read this website annually).

Getting the message of Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention and Consumer Goods Safety out to the world requires teamwork and your participation is so appreciated!

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama