2025-10-30T10:10:34-07:00 2024-12-31 990 2024-01-01 270679437 CREATING A FAMILY CREA 8288628200 102 College Station D Ste 3 PMB 213 Brevard NC 28712 Linda Fiore Executive Director 7739195702 2025-09-30 1 2024 2025-03-06 01:10:19Z X Linda Fiore 165 Potomac Pl Oregon WI 53575 747050 0 X www.creatingafamily.org X 2016 NC Creating a Family is the national adoption & foster care education and support nonprofit. Our mission is to strengthen foster, adoptive, and kinship families and the professionals who support them by creating expert-based, trauma-informed resources, community support, and training. Our vision is that every adopted and foster child has a family who understands their unique strengths and challenges and is equipped to help them thrive. 11 11 6 4 0 0 306382 312792 409882 397250 20085 37008 2776 0 739125 747050 0 0 0 0 354308 370696 0 0 82489 217614 226171 571922 596867 167203 150183 822807 965060 129024 121094 693783 843966 Foster, kinship and adoptive parents need information because our children often struggle with emotional and educational challenges that can make parenting hard. It is important that this information be expert-based and trauma-informed rather than the anecdotal sharing that often takes place. The MISSION of Creating a Family is to do just that - to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster and kinship parents and the professionals who support them by creating engaging, expert-based and trauma-informed resources and training. We create resources for families raising kids who have experienced the trauma of neglect, abuse and prenatal exposure. Our resources embrace all the current media in order to fit the learning style and time availability of busy parents. In addition to education, we know first-hand the power of support and being surrounded by others who understand your experience. As such, we run a large online support group for adoptive, foster and kinship families. 0 0 35109 77229 Creating a Family's Interactive Training and Support Curriculum for Foster, Adoptive & Kinship Families was designed to make it easy for organizations to run engaging, high-quality support groups (in-person or online). Our curriculum is a turnkey resource developed to help facilitators provide support and training while building community, reducing caregiver stress, and helping caregivers feel more confident in parenting children exposed to trauma. In 2020, Creating a Family worked to create, pilot and test the new Interactive Training & Support for Foster/Adoptive/Kinship Families Subscription Service. Ten curricula were developed in 2020 and offered to the public in 2021. During 2021 an additional 10 curricula were developed. In 2022, 5 more curricula were developed. In 2023 we launched a new website to house our Curriculum, making it more accessible and user friendly to organizations running support groups for foster, adoptive and kinship families. The Interactive Training & Support Curricula provides resources and wraparound services with the goal of increasing the number of parent support groups available to families by making it easier to facilitate and maintain high-quality groups where parents develop social connections, reduce stress, and feel more confident in parenting children exposed to trauma. Each curriculum includes a video, facilitator guide, and handouts. The wraparound subscription service has initial facilitator training for online or in-person groups, access to participant evaluations, and access to a curriculum library that includes 25 topics for foster, adoptive, and kinship parents. In 2024, we began developing the Kinship Interactive Training and Support curriculum which is a 10.5 hour curriculum package designed to provide support and training for kinship caregivers raising children in their home. 68088 139735 In 2024, Creating a Family updated and delivered the Prenatal Exposure Workshop for Foster, Adoptive and Kinship Parents over five workshops online during the year. This workshop is designed to help participants recognize children who may have been impacted by prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs and trains them on best practices for working with these children and youth to help them thrive. The workshop was delivered over five sessions and includes a video with embedded video interviews with experts from UNC's Knowles Center for Alcohol Studies, Duke University School of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and foster parents with lived experience raising children with prenatal substance exposure. Further, the videos included animated videos that we created to help explain and animate complex concepts. Each workshop is facilitated by two staff and includes group discussion during each session. Participants have access to an online resource library to reference further materials on topics presented during the workshop, including diagnosis, strategies, and further resources. 93045 0 Another invaluable program service is the Creating a Family podcast. This free, weekly, one-hour production, hosted by Executive Director, Dawn Davenport, covers topics in the fields of adoption, foster care and kinship care with guests that are specialists in their respective fields. Further, each week, Dawn answers listeners' questions during a 5-10 minute podcast that is published on the weekend. There were 169,900 listens during 2024 and 3.1 million listens since the podcast's inception. Creating a Family created a 4-hour facilitated training specific to child welfare professionals to help them better understand the impact of prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs, recognize children who may have been exposed, and support the adoptive, foster, and kinship families who are raising them. In 2024, we piloted this training with ten public child welfare agencies and one American Indian tribe. In collaboration with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Social Work, the training was evaluated and its impact on child welfare professionals was assessed. Children and youth who were exposed during pregnancy to alcohol and drugs are significantly more likely to face placement instability. Child Welfare Professionals trained on the long-term developmental and behavioral impacts of this exposure are better prepared to train and support the families raising these kids. 45092 0 The Creating a Family website, www.CreatingaFamily.org is the focal point of our organization. Our mission is to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them in raising children exposed to trauma, including prenatal exposure, by creating expert-based and trauma-informed resources and training for parents and professionals. Our website is where we house the resources and trainings we create. In 2022, Creating a Family averaged 50,500+ average page views monthly. There is no charge for the vast majority of resources provided on the site. 46992 328183 Creating a Family provides online courses for adoptive, foster, and kinship parents and continuing education courses for social workers in the child welfare field. We have 75+ parent courses for pre-adoptive, in-service foster, and post-adoption families. Each course is 1 hour and comes with a Certificate of Completion. Our courses align with the federal requirements for international adoption and various state-specific pre-adoption education requirements. Our courses address topics relevant to adoptive, foster, and kinship families. We also offer 19 courses accredited by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) to offer continuing education (CE) credit for social workers. In 2024, more than 36,252 courses were enrolled. 33008 34640 Creating a Family reaches out to individuals through its weekly adoption, foster care, and kinship newsletter to 6,400 subscribers and through its broad exposure to the social networks that it maintains on Facebook (9,650+ followers and over 11,300 followers of the Support Group page), Instagram (3,100+) and Pinterest (6,450+) followers. Creating a Family also reaches out to adoption and foster professionals through its weekly newsletter to 4,200 subscribers and through LinkedIn (1,576) followers. 95126 25551 In 2024, Creating a Family delivered both in-person and online support groups for kinship caregivers providing opportunities for peer support and learning. Further, in 2024, we launched a monthly legal clinic for kinship caregivers in North Carolina. We work with three NC family law attorneys to answer questions through an online clinic by Zoom. We continued to provide information on legal permanency options to North Carolina kinship caregivers through NCkinshipfamilies.org. This is a multimedia website that we developed featuring expert videos, kinship caregiver videos, tip sheets, and other resources to help relative caregivers consider their best options when making permanency decisions. The website offers links and information on how to find an attorney and additional legal resources. All of our programs for relative caregivers are developed with input from our Kinship Advisory Board made up of relative caregivers from across the state of North Carolina. 26297 31120 Creating a Family provided weekly content creation in the form of articles and corresponding images for an outside organization to publish on their website. Content covered a range of topics developed in partnership with the organization to support grandparents raising grandchildren and other relative caregivers in their target area. 246515 0 419494 442757 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 13 0 1 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X 11 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 NC X X X Gabrielle Juba 2526262500 102 College Station Dr Ste 3 PMB 213 Brevard NC 28712 Dawn Davenport Executive Director, Board Director 45 0 X 92774 0 2783 Jamie Morningstar Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 Stephen W Hayes Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 Gina Samuels Board Chair 1.5 0 X X 0 0 0 Elizabeth Williams Director 0.5 0 X 0 0 0 Leon Coleman Director 0.5 0 X 0 0 0 Micah Ennis Vice Chair 1 0 X 0 0 0 Gaile Osborne Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 Robin Gurwitch Director 0.5 0 X 0 0 0 Heather Luczak Director 0.5 0 X 0 0 0 Erica Burgess Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 Alicia Jones Director 0.5 0 X 0 0 0 Nick Sgarlata Director 0.5 0 X 0 0 0 92774 0 2783 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 312792 0 312792 Online Education Courses 611699 302210 302210 0 0 Contract Services 900099 37171 37171 0 0 Support Group Curriculum and C.E. 611699 43229 43229 0 0 Adoption Support Newsletters 900099 14640 14640 0 0 0 0 0 0 397250 37008 37008 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 747050 434258 0 0 X 95097 70752 8749 15596 238057 177115 21901 39041 9961 7411 916 1634 27581 20520 2538 4523 19500 1950 16575 975 104367 89149 13059 2159 45607 43107 0 2500 11631 4971 4972 1688 18297 18297 0 0 12873 5175 0 7698 10451 2231 1914 6306 3445 2079 997 369 596867 442757 71621 82489 2684 3318 771475 955653 0 0 44935 1674 0 0 3713 4415 822807 965060 6830 9903 0 122194 111191 0 0 0 0 0 129024 121094 X 657680 837249 36103 6717 693783 843966 822807 965060 150183 0 0 0 0 0 X 0 1 1 0 X 187306 219852 326604 306381 312792 1352935 174717 208505 340733 409882 397978 1531815 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 362023 428357 667337 716263 710770 2884750 135817 141750 250150 244750 297750 1070217 0 10304 89740 138269 84868 323181 135817 152054 339890 383019 382618 1393398 1491352 312 31 5666 17519 30783 54311 0 0 0 0 0 0 312 31 5666 17519 30783 54311 0 0 0 0 0 0 2925 3461 3960 2778 1864 14988 365260 431849 676963 736560 743417 2954049 0.50485 0.52333 0.01839 0.00938 X Schedule A, Part III, Line 12 Credit card reward program $850, Amazon Associates Program $1,013.70 RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED 747050 0 0 0 0 0 747050 0 0 0 747050 596867 0 0 0 0 0 596867 0 0 0 596867 Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 11b The Form 990 was prepared by the CFO with input from key staff and the Executive Director. The complete Form 990 was then circulated to the full Board along with a covering memo highlighting key parts of the document. Comments were requested and all comments were addressed before mailing. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 12c The Conflict of Interest Policy is required to be signed by all Board Members upon joining the Board. The policy is updated periodically from all Board Members and any conflict would be reviewed by the Executive Committee. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 15 The Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors reviews the Executive Director's compensation and benefits package in relation to that of other Executive Directors for nonprofits of comparable size in the geographic region. The Committee makes a recommendation to the full Board which in turn finalizes and approves the compensation package. Form 990, Part VI, Section C, Line 19 The audited financial statements and the Form 990 are available on the company's website. The governing documents and conflict of interest policy are available upon request. Form 990, Part IX, Line 11g Evaluation of Programs & Courses 20,500/0/0; Video Production 15,666/0/0; Program Supplies & Expenses 15,020/0/0; Product Content Manager 7,232/0/0; Audio Engineer 5,041/0/0; Kinship Navigator program workers 4,232/0/0; Continuing Form 990, Education Certification 4,775/0/0; Graphic Designer 1,180/0/0