Canadian Council of Natural Mothers

Email Forum Rules and Conditions

The purpose of the CCNM email forum is support for mothers who have lost children to adoption. The language and discussions on the forum should contribute to this purpose.

The CCNM email forum provides discussions, emotional support, support in healing, validation, advocacy, activism and adoption reform in relation to adoption loss and the concerns pertinent to the loss of children to adoption.

The CCNM email forum is open to people separated by adoption and foster care. [see who may join -- will click to membership]

Rules and Conditions:

The executive reserves the right to decide whether a rule has been contravened, in all cases. The moderator and/or the executive reserve the right to determine if specific discussions are off-topic; what constitutes flaming and arguing beyond the parameters of the forum rules; and to remove a member from the forum while determining reasonable action or mediating a dispute.

• Anyone who advocates for future adoptions is not permitted to join or remain a member of the CCNM, regardless of her or his status in adoption.
• Pro-adoption discussions are not permitted. This does not mean conversations regarding the relative merits or disadvantages of adoption cannot be discussed. It means that if you are mostly interested in promoting the ideal of adoption, this is not the place for you.
• Please do not stray from topics pertinent to natural mothers.
• Topics relating to non-adoption issues, such as political statements, advertising of any kind (except signatures), virus warnings, jokes and inspirational statements, unless they are adoption related, are STRONGLY discouraged and must be vetted by the CCNM moderator or executive. You may not send items to the list without prior permission.
• Flaming of other members such as insulting remarks, name calling, swearing, etc. are not acceptable. Language which blames mothers for adoption, expresses anger against mothers, or argues with mothers over our interpretation of our experiences is considered flaming.
• Please keep arguments and the discussion of arguments private. Failure to do so will mean removal.
  Feel free to vent about systems and individuals that have contributed to the pain we all feel as a consequence of the adoption system, past and present.
• It is understood that the use of generalizations in venting and relating our experiences that have caused us pain and/or frustration, in this forum pertain only to those particular people and experiences and do not include "all" members of a group, organization, profession, etc., past and present. Please do not personalize such discussions unless you are specifically named.
• Please be careful in venting and relating experiences not to name a particular individual or organization in a way that would put you at risk of slander/defaming of another. *see disclaimer
• We require all postings to the forum between members to be confidential.
• Posts must be addressed to the CCNM forum only. Multiple addresses are a form of cross-posting with the potential of contravening the confidentiality of the CCNM forum.
• Please use a personal email address to access the forum. Company addresses are not accepted. In many companies email from an employee is the property of the company, and can be read by anyone in the Information Technology Department of that company as well as by company officials. This also protects the member from accusations of using company time or resources on personal matters. Free email addresses from sources such as hotmail, yahoo, or others are readily available.
• Do NOT copy email from the CCNM forum and send it to non-members. The executive will remove those who contravene this rule. CCNM members post to the forum assuming their words will remain confidential among members of the list. Use of words from or entire emails posted on the CCNM forum cannot be posted to an outside source or shared with others without permission for such use from the originating member. Permission MUST be obtained first.
• Posting email from outside our forum to the CCNM forum is strongly discouraged. Often it is repeat information to members or may seem to make the CCNM forum an arm of another organization. The CCNM prefers to be independent of other organizations. If you wish to post an email from another list to the CCNM forum, or from a former member, and if this is a rare event, please ask the moderator or a member of the executive for permission to post it.
• Do not send attachments to the forum. Viruses are spread by email attachments. Only the moderator or a member of the executive may send email attachments. You should cut and paste information from other sources into your email messages instead of attaching them. If you absolutely require that an attachment be sent to the forum, please send it first to the moderator. Attachments include documents, pictures and email messages from other sources. We strongly suggest members immediately delete any messages which contain attachments from members who are not the moderator, or one of the executive.

Contravening email rules and conditions may lead to removal from the CCNM email forum. Please be aware there can be no guarantee of confidentiality on any email forum. Within the boundaries of the forum rules, please feel free to explore topics pertaining to people separated by adoption. Please understand our intent behind these rules and use it to help free ourselves from the consequences of adoption. Thank you for your cooperation.

We support the philosophy of family preservation
and our practices support this philosophy.

Your email address and name or user name used to register on the CCNM email forum
will be available to all CCNM email forum members.

If you understand and agree to the above terms and conditions, please join us.

Click to join ccnm

*Disclaimer: Although the Canadian Council of Natural Mothers email forum is moderated, it is done so after each email has been posted to the CCNM email forum and is visible to all members. Emails are posted automatically between all members and are not reviewed by the moderator before distribution and are not subject to edits, changes or deletion. In joining the CCNM email forum, it is therefore acknowledged that all posts to the email forum are the express thoughts, views, perspectives, experiences and opinions of the author and not those of the Canadian Council of Natural Mothers, administrators, executive, moderators or webmaster (except for their own email posts) and, therefore, they will not be held liable for the content of email posts to the members' CCNM email forum.