Wayfinder Family Services

What it reported doing in 2024

Families referred to Family Preservation are at risk of having children removed from their home. Through intensive counseling and other services, parents recognize their triggers and learn how to prevent the behaviors that destabilize their family. As a result of Family Preservation, children avoid out-of-home placement or reentry to foster care and can thrive in their nurturing families. This program launched in July 2024 and reflects Wayfinder's commitment to expanding preventive services that can avert the need for crisis intervention.Our Kinship Support Services Program is a kinship navigation service for grandparents, extended family members or close family friends who step up to raise children so they avoid the trauma of separation from their birth family. The program also assists kinship families that form voluntarily, without the assistance of a child welfare agency. Our program offers counseling, assistance with basic needs, support groups and workshops, respite resources and more. Kinship families are more stable, and children maintain their family connections, which produces better long-term outcomes. Our Family Finding services search exhaustively for relatives or people close to children in foster care so they can establish supportive connections. Family finding specialists contact relatives to see if they are interested in phone calls or visits with children in care. Family may not know how to search for the child or even that the child is in foster care. Our specialists coordinate contacts for children and these relatives to build trust and connections so the youth will have a network of caring adults to rely on when they leave foster care. Promoting Safe and Stable Families provides counseling and support to reduce the recurrence of child maltreatment and re-entry into foster care and to increase families' self-sufficiency and positive parenting. The program serves two groups: families that receive intensive services to prevent them from entering the child welfare system and families that receive longer term support as they reunify with a previously removed child. Child and Family Development provides counseling, parent coaching and parenting skills training to birth, adoptive and kinship families whose children are at risk for out-of-home placement due to behavioral, emotional or mental health issues. The program also serves families who have reunified with a child who was previously removed from the home in order to preserve stability and prevent re-entry into out-of-home care.Parents whose children are in foster care receive Supervised Visitation and Coaching services to strengthen parenting skills, enhance parent-child relationships and sustain family ties. Psychosocial Assessment Program assesses resource families, including adoptive families, by completing resource family evaluations within county timeframes.Child Development Services provides early intervention in person to children from birth to age 6 with visual impairment or multiple disabilities. Young children maximize any vision they have and reduce developmental delays. Parents learn to provide their child with therapeutic stimulation and advocate for their child's education and care. Child development reduces the need for special education and increases independence for children with disabilities. Our Special Education School offers children and youth, ages 5 to 22, who are visually impaired or have moderate-to-severe disabilities a safe, positive environment for learning and growth. In the least restrictive environment in our state-certified, non-public school, teachers develop students' communication, mobility and functional skills to increase their independence. Camp Bloomfield provides children and youth who are blind, visually impaired or multi-disabled with memorable experiences in the outdoors. Our camp program offers activities adapted for children of all ages and abilities that develop self-esteem and build independence. Also, Wayfinder

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 89%; rating input score 89
• Program expense ratio: 84.4%; rating input score 84
• Fundraising efficiency: $20.78 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 58; 58th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 5 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 83
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Pass
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Pass
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 26th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -3.4%; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.39; rating input score 48; 48th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.16; rating input score 64; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 4.2%; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 7.5% per year; rating input score 100; 58th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 8.5% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 3.2% per year; rating input score 100; 24th percentile among comparable filings