Editorial Standards

Who writes these

Birch & Light articles are written under the byline Tara Alison. Tara is a parent raising kids who feel everything more, a certified coach, and a former Board of Education member. She is not a doctor, a lawyer, or a therapist, and nothing on this site is a substitute for one.

How articles are made

Research and drafting are AI-assisted. Every article is reviewed before it is published.

That means a few things in practice. Claims are checked against primary sources rather than summaries, and those sources are named at the foot of articles that make factual claims. Where an article states a rule, a timeline, or a figure, it says which regulation, agency, or body it came from and roughly when it was checked.

It also means errors are possible. AI-assisted research can be confidently wrong, and so can people. Which is why the next section matters more than this one.

What we ask you to do

Check anything you are going to act on.

Medical, legal, educational, and insurance rules change constantly and vary enormously by country, by state, and sometimes by district or plan. An article describes the general case. Your case may not be the general case.

Articles that touch these areas carry a notice telling you where to verify. Please use it. The primary sources are almost always free.

What we do not do

We do not diagnose. We do not tell you what treatment your child should have. We do not tell you what to do in your specific legal situation. Where an article gets close to those lines, it points you to the professional or agency that can.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.

This is not a formality. Getting a detail wrong in an article a parent acts on matters more to us than any other kind of mistake, and we would rather hear it from you than leave it up. Corrections go through the contact page and we aim to respond within two working days.

Sponsorship and affiliates

We do not take sponsored content and we do not use affiliate links. Nobody pays to be mentioned here, and we earn nothing when you click through to a product, a book, or a service.

When an article names something specific, it is because we think it helps.