Official Policies

Terms & Conditions

Please read these Terms and Conditions (“Terms”, “Terms and Conditions”) carefully before using the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition website (the “Service”) operated by Foster Care Coalition of Greater St. Louis, Inc. (“us”, “we”, or “our”).

Your access to and use of the Service is conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with these Terms. These Terms apply to all visitors, users and others who access or use the Service.

By accessing or using the Service you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you disagree with any part of the terms then you may not access the Service.

Links To Other Web Sites

Our Service may contain links to third-party web sites or services that are not owned or controlled by us.

We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party web sites or services. You further acknowledge and agree that we shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such web sites or services.

We strongly advise you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of any third-party web sites or services that you visit.

Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of Missouri, United States, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not be considered a waiver of those rights. If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable by a court, the remaining provisions of these Terms will remain in effect. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between us regarding our Service, and supersede and replace any prior agreements we might have between us regarding the Service.

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace these Terms at any time. If a revision is material we will try to provide at least 30 days notice prior to any new terms taking effect. What constitutes a material change will be determined at our sole discretion.

By continuing to access or use our Service after those revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms. If you do not agree to the new terms, please stop using the Service.

Conflict of Interest Policy

A “conflict of interest” exists when, in the course of employment or work for the Coalition, a person’s judgment and discretion is or may be influenced by considerations of personal gain for one’s self, a family member, friend or third party. All business decisions for the Coalition should reflect the best independent judgment and discretion of the person making the decision, uninfluenced by any consideration other than what is honestly believed to be in the ethical best interest of the Coalition. Anyone acting for or on behalf of the Coalition must conduct himself/herself in an ethical manner and avoid any direct or indirect conflict of interest. This policy applies to the members of the Board of Directors, advisory board members, junior board members, officers, employees, consultants, and volunteers. At all times, such individuals are prohibited from using their position or relationship with the Coalition for profit or benefit.

It is not possible to address every possible potential conflict of interest situation. The illustrations below provide guidelines for certain types of situations. The Executive Director and Board President can answer specific questions regarding other situations on a case-by-case basis.

A. Board members, officers, employees, volunteers, consultants of the organization should neither solicit nor personally accept gratuities, favors, or anything of monetary value from contractors/vendors. This is not intended to preclude bona-fide organization fund raising-activities.

B. Board members, officers, employees, volunteers, consultants of the organization shall not participate in the selection, award, or administration of a purchase or contract with a vendor where they have a financial interest in that purchase or contract or any of the following have such an interest:

1. Any member of their immediate family;
2. Their partner;
3. An organization in which any of the above is an officer, director or employee;
4. A person or organization with whom any of the above individuals is negotiating or has an arrangement concerning prospective employment or other work place arrangement.

C. Board members, officers, employees, volunteers, consultants of the organization shall not use any Coalition property or information for personal gain or profit.

D. Reporting

Actual, potential, and/or perceived conflicts of interest must be reported in writing as soon as they arise to the President of the Board or Executive Director.
The President or Executive Director will review, investigate and either resolve the actual, potential or perceived conflict and so advise the reporter in writing or bring the matter to the full Board or Executive Director for resolution.
If any matter is brought to either the full Board or Executive Director which involves a member of a voting body, such member will not be present during discussion of and may not vote on the matter. The official minutes of the Board shall reflect that the conflict of interest was disclosed and the interested person(s) did not participate in the final discussion of or vote on the matter.

E. All board members and other persons covered by the policy must sign a “Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement” annually.

Confidentiality & Privacy Protections

The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition (Coalition) strives to protect the privacy and confidentiality of all clients in compliance with all federal and state laws. At intake, Coalition staff informs clients that certain information may be released without their authorization under the following legal circumstances:

The receipt of a legitimate subpoena or court order, unless the client files a protection order within the timeframe established by Missouri State Law and/or Court of competent jurisdiction.
If ordered by a judge or other judicial officers.
In the event of a medical emergency.
The receipt of information that suggests child abuse or neglect has occurred. Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition employees are mandated to report any such information to the MO Children’s Division.
In the event of threat of harm to someone, if that threat is perceived to be serious, the proper individuals must be contacted.

When the Coalition receives a request for confidential information, or when the release of confidential information is necessary for the provision of services, the Coalition will determine if the reason to release information is valid within the Coalition policy, federal and Missouri statutes. If determined valid, staff will secure a written authorization to release the information from the client and their parent/guardian, as appropriate, before confidential information is released. Clients are offered a copy of the release for their own records after signing. The original signed authorization form will be placed in the case record.

It is the policy of the Coalition to obtain a valid written consent from the client, or his/her legal guardian, prior to recording, photographing, or filming.

Privacy Policy

The www.foster-adopt.org website is a service of the Foster Care Coalition of Greater St. Louis, Inc., a Missouri non-profit corporation d/b/a Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition (“FACC”) and d/b/a Little Wishes. At the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition, we value your privacy. We have implemented this Privacy Statement to explain to you how we use and protect information that we may gather from you by means of the FACC website.

WHAT INFORMATION IS COLLECTED?

Information you give us. We receive and store all information you enter on our website or give us in any other way. This information includes information you give us at registration such as your first name, your last name, your postal address including zip code and country, your e-mail address, and your telephone number. We collect this information from you for the purpose of enhancing your user experience on our site, to improve the content of our website and services, to alert you to our services, and to share special offers, service announcements and updated information, and other new services from FACC. We may use your telephone number to authenticate you after you have registered.

Automatic Information. We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. This includes software “cookies”. Cookies are small chunks of data created by a web server and stored on your computer. They provide a means for websites that you visit to keep track of your online patterns and preferences. Among other things, cookies help us identify returning users, and they help us customize our service to a user’s needs. By understanding which areas of the site a user visits, cookies allow us to present information, products and specials that are of personal interest. In addition to cookies, for each visitor to www.foster-adopt.org, our web server automatically recognizes the visitor’s domain name and IP address (where possible). An IP address is a number assigned to your computer when you connect to the Internet. As part of the protocol of the Internet, web servers can identify your computer by its IP address. We collect IP addresses and related information for the purposes of system administration, to assess the traffic to our site and to maintain and improve our site. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information on our site.

HOW IS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED SHARED?

We are not in the business of selling the information we collect to others. We share personal information only as described in this Privacy Statement and with our affiliates that either are subject to this Privacy Statement or follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Statement. Aggregate information (without personally identifiable information) may be used for internal business purposes, marketing purposes or shared with third parties for our business purposes.

With Agents and Contractors. We may engage other companies and individuals to perform certain functions on our behalf. This includes, by way of example, businesses that sell our services. They may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.

Business Transfers. We might sell or buy assets. In such transactions, personal information generally is one of the transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Statement.

Links. This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of any other site that collects personally identifiable information.

For FACC’s Protection and for the Protection of Others. We may disclose personal information about you or your use of the www.foster-adopt.org site if we have a good faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process, (b) protect and defend the rights or property of FACC or its affiliated companies, (c) enforce the Terms of USE www.foster-adopt.org, and/or (d) act to protect the interests of our users or others.

With Your Consent. Additionally, we have the right to transfer your personal information if we give you notice that such information might be transferred to a third party, and you do not choose not to have such information transferred in the manner specified in such notice.

IS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED SECURE?

We take precautions to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline.

Wherever we collect sensitive information (such as credit card data), that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a closed lock icon at the bottom of your web browser, or looking for “https” at the beginning of the address of the web page.

We will take appropriate steps that we believe are reasonable to protect the security of the personal information you share with us. It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your user account including your password and to your computer. Accordingly, be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer.

While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.

CAN I ACCESS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED?

We will provide you with the means to ensure that your personal information is correct and current. You may review, update and/or delete this information at any time when you log in to our site with your user name and password.

DO I HAVE ANY CHOICES REGARDING THE INFORMATION COLLECTED?

You can choose not to provide personal information. However, you will not be permitted to access the site.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT

We reserve the right to revise this Privacy Statement at anytime. When we do, we will also revise the “last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Statement. You are responsible for regularly reviewing the current Privacy Statement. The most current version of the Privacy Statement can be reviewed by clicking on the “Privacy Statement” hypertext link located at the bottom of our home page at www.foster-adopt.org. Your continued use of the Coalition website after we post any revisions constitutes your agreement to any such revisions. If any such revisions are unacceptable to you, do not access the Coalition website.

CONTACT INFORMATION
We welcome your comments regarding this Privacy Statement. Please contact us by e-mail or postal mail. If you have questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Statement, please e-mail rossisummers@foster-adopt.org, or contact us by postal mail at:

Melanie Scheetz
Executive Director
Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition
1750 South Brentwood Blvd., Suite 210
St. Louis, MO 63144

Donor Privacy Policy

We will not sell, share or trade our donors’ names or personal information with any other entity, nor send mailings to our donors on behalf of other organizations.

This policy applies to all information received by the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition, both online and offline, on the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition’s website, as well as any electronic, written, or oral communications.

To the extent any donations are processed through a third-party service provider, our donors’ information will only be used for purposes necessary to process the donation.

Nondiscrimination Statement

The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition is an equal opportunity employer. As such, and in accordance with applicable law, the Coalition prohibits discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, sex, creed, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, veteran status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or any other discrimination protected by applicable federal, state or local law. This policy applies to all aspects of employment including selection, training, promotion, transfer, compensation, discipline and dismissal.

The Coalition provides services to all clients regardless of race, religion, gender, gender identity and expression, national origin, sexual orientation, age or disability.

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition. Please validate your order as donations are normally nonrefundable. If you submitted an order by mistake or made an error in the amount of your donation, please call the Development Department at 314-367-8373. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Missouri Children's Division Policies

Policies and Other Resources

Missouri Children’s Division Policy Memorandums

Missouri Children’s Division Child Welfare Policy Manual

Missouri Children’s Division e-Forms

Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Policy & Rules

Client Rights & Grievances

I. Purpose In accordance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which makes it a crime to alter, cover up, falsify, or destroy any document with the intent of impeding or obstructing any official proceeding, this policy provides for the systematic review, retention and destruction of documents received or created by Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition in connection with the transaction of organization business. This policy covers all records and documents, regardless of physical form, contains guidelines for how long certain documents should be kept and how records should be destroyed. The policy is designed to ensure compliance with federal and state laws and regulations, to eliminate accidental or innocent destruction of records and to facilitate Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition’s operations by promoting efficiency and freeing up valuable storage space.

II. Document Retention Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition follows the document retention procedures outlined below. Documents that are not listed, but are substantially similar to those listed in the schedule will be retained for the appropriate length of time.

Corporate Records

Annual Reports to Secretary of State/Attorney General – Permanent
Articles of Incorporation – Permanent
Board Meeting and Board Committee Minutes – Permanent
Board Policies/Resolutions – Permanent
By-laws – Permanent
Construction Documents – Permanent
Fixed Asset Records – Permanent
IRS Application for Tax-Exempt Status (Form 1023) – Permanent
IRS Determination Letter – Permanent
State Sales Tax Exemption Letter – Permanent
Contracts (after expiration) – 7 years
Correspondence (general) – 3 years

Accounting and Corporate Tax Records

Annual Audits and Financial Statements – Permanent
Depreciation Schedules – Permanent
General Ledgers – Permanent
IRS 990 Tax Returns – Permanent
Business Expense Records – 7 years
IRS 1099s – 7 years
Journal Entries – 7 years
Invoices – 7 years
Sales Records (box office, concessions, gift shop) – 5 years
Petty Cash Vouchers – 3 years
Cash Receipts – 3 years
Credit Card Receipts – 3 years

Bank Records

Check Registers – Permanent
Bank Deposit Slips – 7 years
Bank Statements and Reconciliation – 7 years
Electronic Fund Transfer Documents – 7 years

Payroll and Employment Tax Records

Payroll Registers – Permanent
State Unemployment Tax Records – Permanent
Earnings Records – 7 years
Garnishment Records – 7 years
Payroll Tax returns – 7 years
W-2 Statements – 7 years

Employee Records

Employment and Termination Agreements – Permanent
Retirement and Pension Plan Documents – Permanent
Records Relating to Promotion, Demotion or Discharge – 7 years after termination
Accident Reports and Worker’s Compensation Records – 5 years
Salary Schedules – 5 years
Employment Applications – 3 years
I-9 Forms – 3 years after termination
Time Cards – 2 years
Donor Records and Acknowledgement Letters – 7 years
Grant Applications and Contracts – 5 years after completion

Legal, Insurance and Safety Records

Appraisals – Permanent
Copyright Registrations – Permanent
Environmental Studies – Permanent
Insurance Policies – Permanent
Real Estate Documents – Permanent
Stock and Bond Records – Permanent
Trademark Registrations – Permanent
Leases – 6 years after expiration
OSHA Documents – 5 years
General Contract – 3 years after termination

III. Electronic Documents and Records Electronic documents will be retained as if they were paper documents. Therefore, any electronic files, including records of donations made online, that fall into one of the document types on the above schedule will be maintained for the appropriate amount of time. If a user has sufficient reason to keep an email message, the message should be printed in hard copy and kept in the appropriate file or moved to an “archive” computer file folder. Backup and recovery methods will be tested on a regular basis.

IV. Emergency Planning Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition’s records will be stored in a safe, secure and accessible manner. Documents and financial files that are essential to keeping Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition operating in an emergency will be duplicated or backed up at least every week and maintained off site.

V. Document Destruction Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition’s executive director or chief financial officer is responsible for the ongoing process of identifying its records, which have met the required retention period and overseeing their destruction. Destruction of financial and personnel-related documents will be accomplished by shredding.

Document destruction will be suspended immediately, upon any indication of an official investigation or when a lawsuit is filed or appears imminent. Destruction will be reinstated upon conclusion of the investigation.

VI. Compliance Failure Compliance Failure on the part of employees to follow this policy can result in possible civil and criminal sanctions against Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition and its employees and possible disciplinary action against responsible individuals. The executive director or chief financial officer and finance committee chair will periodically review these procedures with legal counsel or the organization’s certified public accountant to ensure that they are in compliance with new or revised regulations.

Document Retention & Destruction