28th October & 4th November 2026 @ 9:30am - 12:30pm (2x morning sessions)
Overview
This course is for communications, engagement and public-facing staff across all sectors who are looking to strengthen their organisational resilience to online harm.
It is delivered in two 3-hour sessions and begins with building a strong understanding of the drivers and impacts of false information and targeted harassment. The course covers best practice tools and processes that can be adopted for a range of sectors and scenarios, and all participants will leave with a clear idea of priority actions to help their team continue to do great work, even when experiencing online disruption, harassment and false information campaigns.
STRUCTURE
Session one:
- Understanding the Landscape: A comprehensive overview of coordinated false information, harassment and targeting as a phenomenon. Participants will explore key themes, contributing factors, and major events that have shaped the current environment.
- Capturing impacts: Exploring how this environment affects a range of systems and sectors, including civil society and individual organisations, teams and staff members.
Session two:
- Strategic tools and approaches: An overview of best practice approaches, tools, and systems that help organisations mitigate and respond to the impacts of online harm.
- Co-design: Participants have the opportunity to apply what they’ve learned to an upcoming project, event or activity in their work plan, leaving the course with tangible next steps and a clear idea of priorities and action points.
CONTENT NOTE
This course covers technology-facilitated violence and the bigotry that drives it. This is confronting material, and can land harder for participants from communities frequently targeted by harassment and disinformation. Nicole is experienced in facilitating these conversations, but participants should come aware and ready to engage with some difficult territory.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Recognise the patterns, themes and drivers behind coordinated online harm and false information campaigns.
- Identify the impacts of this environment on both external and internal systems.
- Assess current tools, processes and gaps in their response capability.
- Co-design at least one practical system improvement to take back to their team.
Your facilitator is..
Nicole Skews-Poole
Nicole Skews-Poole is a communicator and trainer specialising in crisis communications and helping organisations understand and mitigate technology-facilitated harm.
She brings a background in strategic communications and crisis response on a range of topics, including navigating some of the first major waves of coordinated online targeting during COVID-19.
She went on to found Anchordown, a consultancy delivering training alongside research and monitoring for clients. Her work spans capacity-building for public-facing organisations and helping organisations under active targeting by extremist network activity in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Nicole is part of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network (CCAN) and a member of the Facilitators Network NZ. She is currently completing Postgraduate studies in Intelligence, formalising the strategic risk approach that underpins her practice.
