Storypark offers different ways for people within a community to communicate with one another. This article explains the differences between each type of message, and links to other articles that explains the best form of message to send in each instance.
Educators can learn more in our strengthening family engagement quality practice guide.
Community posts
A message to your whole community of educators and parents. Generally used for administrative notices, alerts and reminders, and to help build community. When and how to use community posts.
Recipients are all educators and family admins in a centre or a room. Extended family (non-admins) do not have access
Community posts stay with that community, and are not affected by members who join and leave it
Members of a community can only access posts created between the time they join the group and the time they leave
There is an option to send a community post as an Urgent Announcement which sends an email to all recipients, even those who've turned email notifications off.
❗Important: As they override parent's settings we recommend only using announcements for very urgent or time sensitive mattersBoth educators and parents can create community posts, unless an educator admin turns this feature off for parents
Educators can see who has viewed each post by tapping on the eye icon
Educator admins can turn off the ability for parents to comment on community posts if they wish.
Conversations
Conversations are private messages between educators and/or family members within a community. How to use conversations.
Recipients can be anyone in a community (admins and non-admins)
One or more recipients can be individually selected
When an educator is removed from a service they are automatically removed from all conversations they’ve started or participated in that relate to that service. Family members whose children have been archived from a service will also be removed.
Educator admins can turn off the ability for parents and non-admin educators to start conversations if they wish.
Child notes
Child notes are messages/notes generally about resources and ideas to support a child written by and accessible to a child's parents and educators. When and how to use child notes.
Recipients are all educators and family admins of a child. Parents of other children cannot access them, nor can a child's extended family (non-admins)
Child notes are visible on a child's profile (and educators can also access them from their centre or room's child notes page)
Family admins can access all of a child’s notes, even those that were created before they became an admin
You can add a category to child notes to make them easier to find and refer to
You can link a child note to other notes and/or stories
When a child leaves a service their child notes are not accessible any longer to the service (except through the export feature).