In order for a student to travel to the United States and participate in an AFS program, they must be linked to all three of the below:
- a screened host family,
- a school that has granted admission to the student, AND
- a registered and trained liaison, welcome liaison, or support coordinator/associate support coordinator who meets all of liaison requirements.
All students who participate in AFS exchange programs must be linked to all three before the student boards the plane to come to the United States.
This article walks through how to use the Liaison Assignments Widget in MyAFS to assign liaisons to the students in your area. Volunteers with the affiliation Liaison Assignment Coordinator as well as all staff have access to assign and remove liaisons from the widget. All other registered volunteers simply have access to view the widget but not make any changes to the information. If you would like to become a Liaison Assignment Coordinator, please contact your Regional Field Specialist (RFS) or Participant Support and Learning Specialist (PSLS).
For a quick tutorial (under 9 minutes!) on how to use the Liaison Assignments widget, click here. Otherwise keep reading the detailed instructions below on:
- Adding Prospective Liaisons
- Assigning Liaisons to Specific Students
- Finding Eligible Liaisons
- Monitoring Liaison Registration and Training
- Removing a Liaison Assignment
- Liaison Linking Stages
- A Note about Notes
To view a recorded webinar from May 2022 that walks through the instructions below, please click here.
Please note that because liaisons are such an important part of AFS, multiple staff and volunteer roles are involved in ensuring liaisons are identified, registered, trained, linked, and supported. If you are ever in doubt about who to contact with a liaison-related question, please reach out to AskAFS@afsusa.org.
Adding Prospective Liaisons
To indicate that someone has agreed to be a Liaison, go the Liaison Assignments widget, select the correct school year, and then choose Add. If you do not see the Add button, then that means that you do not have the Liaison Assignment Coordinator affiliation and it needs to be added to your file. Write to your RFS, Participant Support Specialist, or AskAFS@afsusa.org to request the affiliation.
When you click Add, the next screen asks you to enter the name of the prospective liaison. MyAFS will first check to see if someone by that name is already in our system.
If MyAFS finds the person you are seeking, great! Click on their name to proceed. If not, click on Add a New Person.
Once someone has been added to the widget, whatever they need to accomplish in order to become a compliant liaison, whether that's volunteer registration, training, or just adding the affiliation to their file, will be triggered.
Assigning Liaisons to Specific Students
If you already have a plan for which liaisons will be assigned to which student(s), go to the Students view, then find the correct student, and click Add.
You will then be asked which volunteer role you wish to add: Liaison, Welcome Liaison, Associate Support Coordinator, Support Coordinator. A Welcome Liaison is a temporary liaison responsible for supporting assigned students and host families until the permanent liaison is identified, fully registered, and trained. Also of note, Welcome Liaisons are auto deactivated when permanent liaisons go active, and if no permanent liaison is assigned to an NH student by January, the Welcome Liaison will become the permanent liaison.
Once a liaison is assigned to a specific student and is fully compliant, a welcome email will go out to the liaison and host family introducing one another even if the host family is not yet fully screened.
Finding Eligible Liaisons
If you are having a hard time finding a liaison for a particular student, consider consulting the list of eligible liaisons. This list shows all registered volunteers who have completed all trainings necessary to be a liaison.
Monitoring Liaison Registration and Training
Once a liaison is added to the Liaison Assignments Widget, AFS staff will monitor new additions to determine if a volunteer application needs to be sent to prospective liaisons who are not currently registered volunteers. Once the application is sent, un-registered volunteers will receive automatic weekly reminder emails (on Wednesdays) until they submit their volunteering application. Once registered, they will receive automatic weekly reminder emails (on Wednesdays) until all training is complete.
Personal outreach to prospective liaisons can be very useful as we know some people miss or ignore auto emails.
You can review a prospective liaison's registration status by clicking on the orange Check Status button in the Registration Valid Through column.
The new page that opens will show exactly which aspects of volunteer registration are missing. In the example below, the prospective liaison needs only a volunteer interview to become a registered volunteer.
You can check on the status of a prospective liaison's needed training by clicking on the orange Check Status button under the Trainings Valid Through column:
The new page that opens will outline the status of each of the three required training courses. The example below shows that the prospective liaison needs to renew the DoS Certification before becoming a liaison.
Removing a Liaison Assignment
When a prospective liaison is no longer willing or interested in being a liaison (or if they become unresponsive), please remove them from the Liaison Assignments Widget by clicking the "x" next to their assignment in the Student view:
To remove a prospective liaison who has not yet been assigned to a student, please notify your Participant Support and Learning Specialist.
Liaison Linking Stages
Throughout the liaison linking process, we use statuses to denote where the prospective liaison is in the process of becoming actively linked to a specific student and host family. You can review those stages here:
Tentative: The Area Team has determined which volunteer will be assigned to the Student/Host Family.
Pending: Support Staff have linked the volunteer, but the volunteer is not fully registered and/or trained
Active: Everything is complete. The Welcome Email has been sent to the Liaison and Host Family.
Unlink Pending: The Area Team has determined the volunteer should no longer be assigned to a specific Student/Host Family. Support Staff has not yet removed the liaison assignment in Global Link.
Inactive: The volunteer was actively assigned to the Student/Host Family for a period of time but is no longer.
A Note about Notes
Liaison Assignment Coordinators and staff have access to leave and update notes related to liaison linking right in the widget by clicking on Add Note:
To know that a Note has been added about a person, the main page will show "View/Update Note" instead of "Add Note."
This is what a Notes entry looks like.
You can also see notes and the history of past notes in the person's Global Link contact log here:
If you have any questions about assigning liaisons, please reach out to your Participant Support and Learning Specialist or email AskAFS@afsusa.org. Thank you for helping us in the assignment of one of the most critical AFS roles!