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A service of Contact a Family

Frequently asked questions - How does it all work?

General questions

Membership

Contacting people

General questions

What's this site for? back to top
MakingContact.org is designed to be a place where families of disabled children or adults, their friends or disabled adults themselves can find and contact others affected by similar disabilities or other disabled people from the same area.
Do you monitor what people say on MakingContact.org? back to top
We don't have the resources to monitor everything that passes through this service but we do have systems that check for and block certain types of words and phrases. Anything posted on or sent through this service is subject to our terms of use. If you see something you feel contravenes these terms then please let us know
How do I join? back to top
To register with us simply use our registration form. You will need to link yourself with at least one medical condition so that people can find you. We will never reveal your contact details to anyone.
How much does it cost? back to top
Searching for people to contact is free of charge and you don't need to join. Standard membership of this site is also free and allows you to post and edit your details. This allows people to find you and you can reply to them without charge. To initiate contact others we ask you upgrade to enhanced membership. More details on the different membership
What if you don't list my condition? back to top
Firstly, make sure you have spelled the condition name correctly or try widening your search by entering fewer characters. We not only search for an exact match of your search terms but also for conditions that may sound like it, so if you enter 'bronk' we will search for 'bronch' as well. Checking with your doctor for other names for the condition may also help. If you still can't find it on this site then please e-mail us at conditions [AT] makingcontact [DOT] org
Will this site remember who I am? back to top
Yes, if you want it to. When you login (see above) you can ask it to remember you. If you do, a cookie will be stored on your PC so that we'll remember you next time. If you have such a cookie you will see a new menu option 'homepage for...', Clicking this will take you directly to your details page.
How do I remove myself from the site completely? back to top
On the left menu you can see a login box. Enter your username and password in there and click Login. You will be then shown your details page to edit (as above). One of the links at the top is clearly labelled 'remove yourself from this site' - click that to unregister. Note: for security reasons, usernames must be unique. Thus if you unregister and, later, re-register you will be unable to use the same username again.
How will you protect my privacy / Will anyone ever see my e-mail address or name? back to top
Nobody using this site will ever see your real name or e-mail address - only your username. Contact a Family staff members also use this site to help families without web access. Our staff will see your real name and e-mail address but we will never use it for anything other than this service or for any other service you have requested. We will never give or sell your address to anybody.
What exactly do you mean by the term disabled? back to top
Throughout this site we use the term disabled to describe someone who is physically or otherwise disabled or has a special need or a medical condition. We do appreciate that not everyone would classify themselves as disabled nor wants to be and we would like to reassure you that we use this term in this way purely to save room on the page and for no other reason.
How do I contact you? back to top

To contact us about a condition send an e-mail to: conditions [AT] makingcontact [DOT] org

To contact us about abuse of our terms of service - send a message to : report [DOT] abuse [AT] cafamily [DOT] org [DOT] uk

If you have any questions or comments regarding this site and it's operation, you can contact us at info [AT] makingcontact [DOT] org

Our address is : Contact a Family, 209-211 City Road, London EC1V 1JN. Tel: +44 (0)20 7608 8700

Membership

What's the difference between an enhanced and standard member? back to top
When you register here to post your details (so that someone else can contact you), you become a standard member. To contact someone else through here (i.e. not replying to them through your e-mail) you need to upgrade to an enhanced membership. This gives you the ability to start up to five conversations per day. Enhanced membership currently costs £5.00 Sterling per year.
How do I upgrade to an enhanced membership? back to top
How do I upgrade to an enhanced membership?
Why do you charge for contacting someone? back to top

We make a small charge for enhanced membership which is needed if you want to start conversations with people. If you have standard membership and someone contacts you, you can reply without incurring any charge.

There are a few reasons why we decided to charge a small annual fee for enhanced membership.

  • It is firstly to try and deter nuisance users, who might otherwise use this service to send unwanted messages to many people, for example, information about products for sale.
  • A second, and more important reason, is for the protection of parents using the service and to discourage children from using the service directly as discussions are unmonitored. By making a small charge we can go some way to ensuring that if somebody did seriously abuse the system and behaved in an inappropriate or illegal way it would be possible to trace that person.
  • Also, we are unable to offer the kind of vetting required to offer this service to children and feel that if a token payment had to be made by credit card, it will prevent children using the site.
Why can I only contact five people per day? back to top
The limitation on the number of people you can contact was also introduced to protect members from people doing general emails to large numbers of people. In this way we ensure that those contacting others are genuinely wanting to make contact with a person who is in the same situation as themselves and looking for support/wanting to give support to others.
How do I alter my details? back to top
On the left menu you can see a login box. Enter your username and password in there to alter your details.
How do I remove myself from the site completely? back to top
On the left menu you can see a login box. Enter your username and password in there and click Login. You will be then shown your details page to edit (as above). One of the links at the top is clearly labelled 'remove yourself from this site' - click that to unregister. Note that for security reasons, usernames must be unique. Thus if you unregister and, later, re-register you will be unable to use the same username again.
Will you let me know if someone adds themselves to one of my conditions? back to top
Yes. In your conditions management page you can request to be notified for any of your associated conditions.
How do I find someone affected by my condition? back to top
Using the form at the bottom of each page you can search for a disability or condition. The system will try to match a condition to your search and return a list of people associated with it who are looking for contact. If more than one condition matches your search then you will see a list of potential matching conditions to choose from. Clicking on a condition will bring up a list of people registered under it. If there are more than 25 people you can filter the results by things like age, gender or family size. Alternatively you can use our advanced search page which enables you search by criteria other than conditions.
How do I find someone (regardless of condition) in my town/country? back to top
Using the advanced search page, you can search for people by location or by other criteria such as whether they are a father or whether they are a disabled adult. The results of searches will be grouped into conditions.

Contacting people

Once I have found someone, how do I contact them? back to top
When you see a list of people you can click the envelope icon next to their name to contact them. Initiating contact with other members is limited to enhanced members and you can only start five 'conversations' per day. To start a conversation you click the envelope next to their name and fill in the form on this site.
How does someone contact me? back to top
When you register with us, you post your details on this site for others to find. By associating yourself with up to five conditions, you enable others searching to find and contact you. For example your child may have Cerebral Palsy and Visual Impairment and you could list yourself under both. When someone
How do I receive the messages? back to top
Messages sent from this site are sent to your e-mail address. Your e-mail address is hidden from the sender unless you choose to reveal it within any reply you give. When you reply your message is sent back through our systems to them. In this way the sender and receiver never see any more than each others usernames unless they choose to reveal them. After you have sent a few messages back and forth to each other we will suggest that one of you reveal your address in order to continue the conversation outside of our systems. This is simply to reduce our overheads and because we have found that after a few messages people are generally able to decide whether they want to trust the other person or not.
Can I send to more than one person in a single message back to top
No. Because we use the concept of e-mail conversations, in order to protect our members privacy, you can only respond to the person who sent you the message. If you know another members e-mail address you can of course put that in the CC: box but remember that the member you are contacting anonymously will see that e-mail address so we recommend you do NOT give away any members e-mail address without their permission first.
How do I add myself to a condition? back to top
Once you are registered you can either manage your conditions from your details page or you can search for a condition in the normal way and click the button on the page listing the people associated with it.
Is this site available in other languages? back to top
Yes. You can use this site in any of our supported languages and we hope to add more as time goes on. To use the site in a different language click the relevant link on our languages page. The site will now be displayed in the language you chose for the duration of your visit. If you want the site to remember your chosen language when you return , click the 'remember me' link on the same page. Note that n order to remember your settings, this site uses cookies. You must ensure that your browser can and does accept cookies from this site in order to use this feature. Also note that text posted by members will always remain in the language they posted in and will not be translated. A note will be placed on each member's details page to signify which language they posted in as well as which other languages they can use.
Why isn't this site available in my language? back to top
The number of languages we offer is limited at present due to funding. We would like to increase this number so if you would like to use this site in a language not offered, please let us know
Start searching for people to contact. advanced search
You can search for people now, simply enter the name or acronym of a medical condition in the box below and click 'find now' to see how many people we have listed against it. You will then be able to narrow down your search, say by age or gender, if required.

condition:  

A full list of all conditions is available in either alphabetical or hierarchical forms. Note that there are over 2000 conditions and these lists may take a few seconds to display

You don't have to enter the full name of the condition, abbreviations, parts of the name & wildcards (*) are acceptable.

Notes

If you find something on this site or you have received a message through this system that you feel contravenes our terms of use, then please
let us know

We would like to thank The Headley Trust and the Department Of Health for their financial support in developing MakingContact.org

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