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 key employee compensation. Instead, the board relies on upper management to determine compensation. Key employee 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.”

“The organization makes its governing documents available to the public 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 100+ years to meet urgent and emergent needs, our focus on supporting children in foster care, adoptees and those who love them has never wavered. Amara served 1,710 parents and 354 children in 2022.”

“Family preservation programs focus on preventative measures to reduce the factors that lead to the separation of children and parents through child welfare system involvement. While amara has historically focused on broadening the definition of family to include all adults who care for a child, it has historically focused on adoption in providing post-child welfare system supports to children and families. Amara has expanded this programming to focus on family preservation and connection after reunification. Amara today addresses root causes of child welfare system involvement through our family resource center, which helps families access resources, financial assistance, and concrete goods so that poverty and lack of support do not push families further into crisis.”

“Resource care program: our resource care programs consist of 3 programmatic areas designed to provide services to children and families impacted by the foster care system. Amara's foster care services, kinship care support, and family connections programs use a reunification-focused approach and recruit, prepare, and/or provide support to adults as they care for children who have been removed from their parents' care. Program staff support caregivers in navigating the foster care system, build relationships with a child's family and community, and obtain the resources and training necessary to ensure the wellbeing of the children in their care. Amara works with families from a broad range of ethnicities, belief systems, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and economic circumstances as they support children throughout their foster care journey. Amara is committed to addressing racial disproportionality within foster care and to maintaining birth family ties whenever possible.”

“Family preservation programs: our family preservation programs focus on preventative measures to reduce the factors that lead to the separation of children and parents through child welfare system involvement. Amara addresses root causes of child welfare system involvement through our family resource center, which helps families access resources, financial assistance, and concrete goods so that poverty and lack of support do not push families further into crisis. Family preservation programs also provide support to parents who are at a high risk for having their child(ren) removed from their care, parent focus program, as well as to parents who may be fast-tracked towards reunification, early childhood court program. Furthermore, we support parents who have successfully reunified with their children to advocate for system reform and inform parent supportive programming. Family preservation programs also seek to foment and steward the connection between children and their families of origin through supporting post-adoptive families in maintaining openness with children's extended families and supporting biological parents through some of the nuances of open adoption agreements. Lastly, we provide education and peer support groups both virtually and in person to help improve parent and caregiver wellbeing and skill-building, while also supporting people to build supportive peer networks.”

“Uncollectible pledges -17,014”