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Membership and contribution

What membership is, and what happens to
what you write.

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

Instrument

Membership 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.

1Joining, and what it costs

  1. 1.1
    Signing the charter is how you join. You join as 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 signatory profile per person. There are no passwords: you sign in with a one-time link sent to your email.

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
    Members 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 members’ work

  1. 6.1
    You can endorse an accepted pattern once, to mark that it resonates.
  2. 6.2
    What you see inside the members’ area is shared in confidence within the Alliance. Please do not republish another member’s contribution, especially one still in review, outside the portal.

7Good faith

  1. 7.1
    Join and contribute in good faith.
  2. 7.2
    The Alliance may decline or remove a contribution that breaks the one rule, and may close a membership that is used to harass or harm. We will tell you if we do.

8Leaving

  1. 8.1
    You can withdraw your signature and close your membership 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. 2026-08-02
    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.
  2. 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.

If you need support right now, please do not wait for an email.

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