Amara

“The organization's process is to review and approve the auditor's report and financial statements for the year. The form 990 is based on these board-approved reports.”

“All directors are required to annually disclose any potential conflicts.”

“The board has a written policy for determining executive director compensation. The process follows federal guidelines. Compensation is determined considering comparative compensation of similar positions and no persons with a conflict of interest are included in the approval of compensation. The board reviews and approves the executive director's compensation annually.”

“The board does not have a formal policy for determining finance manager compensation. Instead, the board relies on upper management to determine compensation. The finance manager's compensation is determinded by upper management based on experience, education, expertise and tenure combined with comparative statistics for similar positions. The board approves compensation through approval of the annual budget.”

“Amara's governing documents are made available upon request.”

“Amara's mission is to ensure that every child in foster care has the love and support of a committed family - as quickly as possible, and for as long as each child needs. Amara has been serving washington since its founding as medina baby home, a traditional orphanage, in 1921. While amara's services have evolved over the past 98 years to meet urgent and emergent needs, its focus on finding permanence and stability for children in foster care has never wavered. Amara served 551 parents and 668 children in 2018.”

“Foster care services: there are currently thousands of children living in temporary foster care in washington. Amara's foster care services program focuses on finding, preparing, and supporting families as they parent children, navigate the foster care system, and build relationships with a child's family and community. Amara works one-on-one with families as they walk through their foster care journey. Amara works with families from a diverse range of ethnicities, belief systems, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and economic circumstances, is committed to addressing racial disproportionality within foster care and to maintaining birth family ties whenever possible. The focus of our foster care services program is preparing and supporting families in committing to care for children in foster care for as long as each child needs.”

“Emergency sanctuary program: amara's emergency sanctuaries, located in seattle and tacoma, are designed to provide short-term, temporary care for children as they initially enter the foster care system. Through this effort, amara is working to meet an urgent need in the community by serving children immediately upon their removal from their homes by child protective services, to provide an alternative to waiting in social workers' offices or in a hotel. Our sanctuaries provide trauma-informed care by trained staff and volunteers and offer children a safe, stable environment for up to 72 hours, where their well-being is addressed, sibling groups are kept together, while state social workers and families work together to find the best, safest, long-term placement. The goal of our sanctuary program is to ensure that the children who stay with us are given the opportunity to feel safe, welcomed, and important as they transition back home with their parents, with relatives, or to a licensed foster home.”

“Post-adoption program: recognizing adoption as a life-long experience, amara's post-adoption program works to ensure that adoptees and those who love them -- including adoptive parents and birth parents -- receive support in order to promote stability and fulfilling family relationships. Our post-adoption program is committed to providing programing that recognizes and supports the interconnected web of relationships that form the adoption triad (adoptee, adoptive family, birth family) and beyond. Program activities include: star adoptee mentorship program, project search and reunion, adoption community workshops, and our inclusive family support model.”