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Signing and contribution

What signing means, and what happens to
what you write.

Signing the charter makes you a founding signatory, and it is free. These terms say what you are agreeing to when you sign, and what happens when you contribute a practice pattern.

Instrument

Signatory and contribution terms. The agreement between NAPSDM and its founding signatories.

Published

June 11, 2026. The Alliance is a Canadian federal non-profit, incorporated on July 10, 2026.

Kept current

If these terms change, this page changes first.

What it costs

Nothing, forever. Founding-signatory status is never sold, and the workers and claimants the Alliance exists for are never charged for anything.

Your words

Yours. The permission you give the Alliance is non-exclusive, ongoing, and free.

The Standard

Free to read and free to reproduce word for word, with credit. Licensed CC BY-ND 4.0.

Reviewed with

The privacy page and the conflict-of-interest policy.

A teacher working through papers at a high table in an empty classroom in late afternoon light, a colleague at the far end of the room
Section 3.2

Patterns, never a case. This is the line every contribution has to stay on.

You keep ownership of your own words. You can use what you wrote anywhere else you like.

1Signing, and what it costs

  1. 1.1
    Signing the charter makes you an individual founding signatory, with a name, a role, and an email.
  2. 1.2
    It is free, forever. Founding-signatory status is never sold, and the workers and claimants the Alliance exists for are never charged for anything.
  3. 1.3
    One signature per person, and one founding signatory number. There is nothing to log into and no password: you confirm your address once, using a single-use link we email you, and that is the whole of it.
  4. 1.4
    Whether your name appears on the public register of founding signatories is your choice, and you make it when you sign. The same email carries a permanent link that takes your name off the register whenever you want, without asking anyone and without explaining why.

2Your signatory number

  1. 2.1
    When you sign, you are issued a founding signatory number. It is yours.
  2. 2.2
    If you ever leave, your number is retired and never given to anyone else.

3What you contribute, and the one rule

  1. 3.1
    Signatories answer calls for practice with patterns: what works, in general terms, drawn from your professional practice or, on the lived-experience track, from your own experience of the system.
  2. 3.2
    The one rule, which is also the agreement you are making: patterns, never a case. Never name a person, an employer, or include any detail that could identify someone. Keep it general.
  3. 3.3
    This protects the people the Alliance exists for, and it is the line every contribution has to stay on.

4What happens to what you write

  1. 4.1
    You keep ownership of your own words. You can use what you wrote anywhere else you like.
  2. 4.2
    When you contribute, you give the Alliance permission to use, edit, and combine your pattern with others into the Standard and the Alliance’s materials. That permission is non-exclusive, so you keep your words, and it is ongoing and free.
  3. 4.3
    You can withdraw a pattern at any time before it is published in a version of the Standard. Once a pattern has been published in a version with your consent, it stays in that version’s record.
  4. 4.4
    Your name appears only with your consent: you choose, for each contribution, whether to be credited, and you can change that choice any time before the version is published.

5How the Standard is licensed

  1. 5.1
    The Standard is built to be used. The text of each published version is free to read and free to reproduce word for word, as long as you credit NAPSDM.
  2. 5.2
    What you may not do is publish a changed version and present it as the standard. In Creative Commons terms, the Standard text is licensed CC BY-ND 4.0.
  3. 5.3
    This is how a standard stays trustworthy: there is one authoritative version everyone can point to. The evidence behind the Standard stays open, and your own contributed words remain yours to reuse.

6Reading and endorsing other signatories’ work

  1. 6.1
    You can endorse an accepted pattern once, to mark that it resonates.
  2. 6.2
    Another signatory’s contribution is shared with you in confidence within the Alliance. Please do not republish it elsewhere, especially while it is still in review.

7Good faith

  1. 7.1
    Sign and contribute in good faith.
  2. 7.2
    The Alliance may decline or remove a contribution that breaks the one rule, and may end the participation of a signatory who uses it to harass or harm. We will tell you if we do.

8Leaving

  1. 8.1
    You can withdraw your signature at any time. Email hello@napsdm.ca and it is done within seven days: your details are removed and your signatory number is retired.
  2. 8.2
    Anything already published in a version you consented to stays part of that version’s record.

9Information, not advice

  1. 9.1
    Everything the Alliance publishes, including the Standard, is information, not legal, medical, or financial advice.
  2. 9.2
    If you are in crisis, please use the numbers on the crisis support page rather than email, which can take days.
  3. 9.3
    How we handle your details is set out on the privacy page. The Alliance’s independence is set out in the conflict-of-interest policy.
  4. 9.4
    These terms and those pages are reviewed together by the founding board.

—Revision history

These terms are kept current. Every change is recorded here.

  1. 2026-10-05
    Membership wording replaced with signing and signatory throughout, because the Board has not adopted a membership model. Signing the charter makes you a founding signatory, which is what these terms have always covered. Title changed from “Membership and contribution terms”. Clause 7.2 now speaks of ending a signatory’s participation rather than closing a membership. No obligation on either side changed.
  2. 2026-08-31
    Clause 1.3 corrected: it described signing in with a one-time link, which was the member portal, and signing does not work that way. New clause 1.4 states the public-listing choice and the permanent link that reverses it. Clause 6.2 no longer refers to a members’ area or a portal. No obligation changed.
  3. 2026-08-02
    Set out as numbered clauses so each line can be cited on its own. No term changed. Clause 9.4 dropped “as the alliance incorporates”, which was written before incorporation on 10 July 2026.
  4. 2026-06-11
    Published.

Questions about anything on this page reach hello@napsdm.ca, and a person answers.

To withdraw your signature or correct your details, one email does it. Changing how you are credited works the same way, up to the point the version is published, which is clause 4.4.

Questions? Talk to the Alliance

Published June 11, 2026. NAPSDM is a federal not-for-profit corporation incorporated under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (No. 1808118-2). Nothing on this page is legal advice.

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