Editorial and Fact-Checking Policy

Source order

• First: legislation, government program pages, regulators, public institutions and official service pages.
• Second: peer-reviewed research, recognized clinical guidance and established nonprofit organizations with transparent authorship.
• Third: reputable reporting for context, never as the only source for an eligibility or clinical claim.
• Community posts, social media and search snippets are leads to investigate, not final evidence for public guidance.

Fact-check workflow before publication

• Identify each claim that could change a health, education, legal, tax, funding or service decision.
• Open the underlying source and verify the claim in context; do not rely on a search-result summary.
• Record geographic scope, eligibility limits and a last-verified date.
• Remove unsupported prices, wait times, prevalence claims or guaranteed outcomes.
• Link to the primary source and tell readers to re-check it before acting.
• Require a second human review for high-stakes medical, legal, tax or financial guidance before labelling it professionally reviewed.

What our labels mean

• Community content: personal experience or discussion; not treated as verified professional guidance.
• Published directory record: visible listing assembled from a provider, public source or contribution; not automatically endorsed or verified.
• Source checked: an editor opened the cited sources and checked the page’s material claims on the displayed date.
• Verified listing or program: a moderator confirmed the material record against an identified source on the recorded date.
• Professionally reviewed: a named reviewer with relevant current qualifications reviewed the content; this label is never inferred from AI or general editorial review.

Freshness and re-check targets

• Funding, benefits, eligibility and active service pathways: review at least every 90 days and after a known policy change.
• Venue schedules, events and sensory-friendly sessions: confirm at the source immediately before a visit; listings show their check date.
• Programs and provider operational details: re-check at least every 180 days when used in editorial recommendations.
• Stable explanatory material: review at least annually or when the cited authority changes its guidance.
• A stale page may remain available for context but should not remain indexed as current guidance without a visible warning.

Use of AI and automation

Automation may help find candidate sources, detect stale links, compare fields or draft an outline. It may not publish factual public guidance without human source review. AI-generated citations are opened and checked like any other lead, and private member information is not used to create public editorial content.

Independence and commercial influence

Payment does not buy verification, a favourable review or an editorial recommendation. Featured or sponsored placements must be labelled. Directory inclusion does not mean Autism Resource Hub endorses the provider, program or venue.