Introduction

The Threads of Life blog was developed to:

• improve our outreach to new families not yet connected with the organization,
• provide information of value to existing family members, and
• engage supporters and stakeholders like safety professionals, partners and volunteers.

In keeping with our relationships with our family members and supporters, our blog has a particular tone, approach and priorities. Not all topics will be a good fit – please read current posts on our blog to see what we’re looking for.

Content criteria

Content on the Threads of Life blog falls into six categories:

• Family support
• Grief and healing
• Books, movies, music
• Safety culture
• Steps for Life
• Volunteers

Writers should keep in mind that our audience is national, so every effort should be made to ensure content, including resources and references, is relevant to people across Canada.
Our priorities for content include:

• Topics of value to families in coping with grief – examples of coping strategies, resources, success stories
• Topics of value to safety professionals working to build stronger safety cultures – examples of approaches, case studies, success stories

We welcome personal stories about ways you have copied with grief, and how Threads of Life support programs have helped you. Other topics which fit within the six categories above will be considered. Threads of Life will generally NOT publish posts promoting products or commercial ventures, or articles about specific safety and health hazards. We will not publish posts that make accusations against specific workplaces, companies or agencies such as compensation boards or governments.

Style and format

• Length: Most blog posts should be in the range of 250 to 750 words. Longer posts may be considered, depending on the topic – discuss with us!
• Language: Lean towards simple language and short paragraphs. Avoid unnecessary technical terms and acronyms (short forms). If they are necessary, explain them.
• Spelling: We try to use Canadian spelling – colour instead of color etc.
• Headlines: Suggest an interesting heading that incorporates the key words from your post. Also please suggest a sub-headline – the second heading which offers more information. See some current blog posts for examples.
• Emphasis: Break up and emphasize important parts of your post by using bold text and bullet points.

Links

Internal links: 

Links to other Threads of Life content – either other blog posts or web pages (www.threadsoflife.ca or www.stepsforlife.ca) – are encouraged. We may add links from your post to our content where appropriate.

External links, including links to your website or blog: 

Links to non-Threads of Life resources are welcome, if they will offer value to our family members, volunteers and supporters. Threads of Life may limit the number of external links provided.

Links to commercial sites (those selling products or services) are not permitted, with one exception: a writer whose blog topic has been approved by Threads of Life may provide a single link to his or her own web site — even if it sells products or services. This link will generally be provided as part of the writer’s bio, and not in the body of the post.

Other items

Along with your blog post, we will ask you to send us:

• A photo to go with the post if possible. This must be a photo you have permission to use. If you can’t provide one (and we know that can be hard), we will select a photo at our discretion.
• A brief bio – two or three sentences about your background. See other author bios on our blog for examples.
• A photo to go with your bio – ideally this should be a head and shoulders shot, roughly square in composition.

Submission and review process

Before you start writing, submit your idea for consideration. Email a paragraph or two describing the topic and why you are the best person to write about it. Send your email to [email protected]. We will respond within two weeks to let you know whether or not we will be able to use your idea for a post. We will give you timeline to complete and submit the article.

Once your finished blog post has been sent to us, it will be reviewed internally – this will take up to one month. We reserve the right to edit your blog submission for spelling, grammar, content, length etc. If we feel any substantial revisions are needed, we will discuss these with you. It may be up to three months before a completed post is published, depending on our content calendar.

Re-publishing

Please ask permission before re-publishing your blog post elsewhere. We will not unreasonably deny permission, and will ask you to acknowledge that the article was previously published on the Threads of Life blog.