Frequently asked questions

Our Normal is a private community that is only open to registered members. This means that only other registered members can view your profile, and your account information is protected by your username/email address and password. Information that you share will not show up in any search engine results, either.

You contact another family by using the Our Normal’s service for handling messages. The family who gets your message will receive a notification and then be able to use the message service to send an answer to you.

If you find a family who you think you may want to contact sometime in the future, you can select “Follow this family”. A reminder about this family profile will be saved on your personal page under “Families we follow”.

Special needs and abilities regarding mobility, communication, learning, and/or concentration and interaction?
Experience with a disability such as visual impairment, hearing loss, Cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, Dravet syndrome, Autism, Asperger, Epilepsy, muscular disorders, rare chromosomal aberrations, ADHD? Or something else which is the Normal in your family?

In order to describe the type of disability/special need with which your family has experience, it is possible to indicate this in more general and/or specific terms. You as a family make the decisions as to what you want to share. However, keep in mind that more specific information will allow other families to more easily find you and you’ll be a better support to them.

Our Normal is dedicated to data security and we have high ambitions to both respect and protect the privacy of our members. All information shared between you and our servers is encrypted using an SSL certificate (Secure Socket Layers). The only unique information we collect about you as a user is the email address and password that you use to register and verify your account. All other personal information is handled by you on your family profile page. Under no circumstances will we share any personal information with third parties.

However, for your safety and security, we also want to remind you that information shared on the internet and in online communities can never be guaranteed to be 100 % secure, so carefully consider what information you decide to share on your profile. As the creators founders of Our Normal, we know from our own experience that there is a real need to share questions and issues with other families. However, we prefer for some such conversations to take place in more private settings, rather than in large open forums where a lot of information is exposed. By enabling families to get in touch one-on-one, we simply hope to encourage communication, dialogue, and get-togethers in smaller groups and more private settings!

All users can report other family profiles that violate Our Normal’s Terms of Use. We reserve the right to disable or block an account, without prior notice, if we have reasons to suspect misuse or abuse or any violation of our Terms of Use or Privacy Policy. To report a family profile, click on the “Report this profile” button on the family’s profile page. We would also appreciate a short explanation of why you chose to report the profile; please email this to info@ournormal.org.

Use of Our Normal is free of charge and there is no fixed cost or subscription fee.

Great that you are interested in letting others no about Our Normal! Please follow us in our social media channels to find material to spread to other people within your networks. You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

Interested in finding out more, or just getting in touch? Send us a few lines at info@ournormal.org.

Publisher: Jenny Lindström Beijar
Email: jenny@ournormal.org
Phone: 0046 733 98 82 89

(Thank you photographer Andi Weiland and Sozialhelden for selected photos, and photographer Minna Riddarstolpe)

Do you have an idea about how we should develop this service? Do you have digital development skills that you would like to contribute? Contacts and connections with whom you think we would be a good match? Or do you want to sponsor Our Normal?

Don’t hesitate to get in touch at info@ournormal.org!

No, Our Normal is open to all families who want to be part of building this supportive community and who have relevant experiences to share (based upon the description above). We would love to see people from different countries and cultures join the community as that would also enable connections to be established between families internationally. It is therefore up to you to decide the language to use in your family presentation; English or your local language, or both. (The fact that the service is available only in English and Swedish is due to costs. As soon we have the possibility to do so, we hope to launch the service in more languages, as well.)

Our Normal is run by a non-profit organization and the development of the platform has been enabled through public funding within the field of social innovation, together with pro bono support from our partners. In order to ensure continued stability, development of the platform will depend on a mix of funds, donations, sponsoring, and volunteers. Partners, and any other third parties with whom we decide to cooperate, with will under no circumstances have access to private member information or information on individual users. You can read more about how this is ensured in our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

In the future, we hope to also offer you a range of relevant services and/or products. However, Our Normal is first and foremost a social contact space, not a marketplace.