Forum house rules

Our forums are moderated every day by members of our Family carers' team, web team and information and advice team. We are here to make sure the forums are a safe place for you to talk and to keep the discussions respectful and focused.

Who are the forums for?

• These forums are for parents and carers
• they are to be used to talk about learning disability
• there are not to be used to discuss professional/ research aspects of learning disability
• they are not for students or academics to post research questions
• they are not for selling or promotion
• they are not for Mencap staff or Mencap local groups to discuss work related issues

Your screen name and profile

Screen names should be clear and cannot contain any spaces. Don't use your email address as a screen name as everyone will be able to see it. You should also not use swear words or any other offensive language.

You can not have multiple profiles. If you are found to have more than one profile you will be removed and your profiles will be deleted.

A forum to support other parents and carers

We want our forums to be a safe and welcoming place for parents and other family members who have an interest in learning disability. We ask you to keep your discussions and messages focused on being supportive and sensitive to people's feelings.

Giving advice and support

We hope that people will be able to give each other useful emotional support and advice. Everyone's experiences and needs are different so please be sensitive to others. If you are recommending other sites, organisations or services - or are receiving recommendations, do take them as personal recommendations that you should check out yourselves. Mencap cannot endorse all recommendations given on these forums.

Also people may not always be looking for advice, but just for others to listen, or give emotional support.

A little respect...

When using our forum, please respect the views and beliefs of other people. Learning disability can be an emotional subject, and something people feel strongly about. If we see any discussions or messages that are aggressive or disrespectful to others we will remove them. We will also remove posts that use bad language.

No bullying here!

We don't tolerate disabilist bullying, or any other kind of intolerance like racism, homophobia or ageism. Do not use threatening or abusive language - if someone has offended you in anyway you must report them to Mencap and not enter into an argument with them.

Don't advertise or promote

This forum is not for commercial organisations to advertise or promote their products or services. We will delete posts that have this type of information.

Reporting a post

If you think that someone is being offensive, or breaking the house rules of the forum, you can contact us using the 'Report this post' link. We will try to deal with these messages as quickly as possible.

Do not give out personal information

We hope that this forum will be a safe and supportive environment, but you should still not give out out email addresses or other personal details.

Do not identify anyone by full name or location especially when talking about a child. If you want to talk about someone you should use a first name only or even a nickname or initials.

We will ban people who continue to break the rules

We take our house rules seriously. They are in place to protect our users and create a supportive environment.

We will send you a message if we feel your post needs to be changed, or someone has reported what you have written. If the problem is minor, we will allow up to two warnings. Any more then two warnings, we will delete your profile and ban you from using the forum.

Any serious offence will result in an immediate ban and the deletion of your posts.

Further information

Mencap has the right to change or update the house rules at any time.

For more information about the Mencap website you can read our Terms and conditions.

Thank you for taking the time to read our house rules. To join our online community please register. If you have any problems or questions please email webmaster@mencap.org.uk