Privacy Policy

Effective as of October 1st, 2023

Protecting your private information is our priority. This Privacy Policy applies to the www.family-match.org website and the Family-Match program and governs both offline and online data collection and usage. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise noted, all references to Family-Match include www.family-match.org (our "Website"). Family-Match is a program of Adoption-Share, a non-profit organization, that provides a data driven application designed to help families who are home study approved to become visible to placement workers in their state and to allow placement workers to identify child and family pairings that may have a good relational fit.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully and let us know if you have any questions. By visiting or using the Website, clicking "I agree" or any other button indicating your acceptance of this Privacy Policy, or otherwise providing information to Family-Match, you are consenting to the collection, use, and sharing of your information as described in this Privacy Policy.
Collection of your Personal Information
Family-Match may collect a variety of information about you through the Website and by other means, including:
  • We collect information about you when you use our contact form or request email updates from our Website. This may include your name, email address, phone number, and any message you provide.
  • We collect information when you send us an email. This may include your email address and the content of your communication.
  • If you choose to register and use the Family-Match service, Family-Match will collect information such as your age, gender, household income, race, religion, marital status, personality, interests, hobbies, spoken languages, and foster/adoption criteria of child, state of residence, and home address. We will also collect information through assessments before and after a placement to help evaluate whether a pairing is a good relational fit. This may include sensitive details about the child and the family, including information about criminal history, racial and gender identity, and mental health. This information will not be made public and will only be visible to registered placement workers in your state. We may gather additional personal or non-personal information in the future.
  • From time to time, we may conduct surveys, which you are welcome and encouraged to complete on a voluntary basis. We use data collected from these surveys to improve our services and to identify trends related to child welfare.
  • Information about your computer hardware and software may be automatically collected by Family-Match when you access the Website. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used for the operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the Website.
  • We also use cookies on the Website (see "Use of Cookies" below).
Use of Cookies
The Family-Match website may use "cookies" to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your computer or other device by a web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize Family-Match pages, or register with the Family-Match site or services, a cookie helps Family-Match to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information. When you return to the same Family-Match website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the Family-Match features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the Family-Match services or websites you visit.

Use of Your Information
Family-Match collects and uses your information to operate its Website and deliver the services you have requested, including promoting better matches between children and families. 

Family-Match may also use your information to communicate with you or to inform you of other products or services available from Family-Match and its affiliates.

Family-Match may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of current services, potential new services that may be offered, or to study markers of compatibility with foster and adoptive families.

By using our site, you give consent to allow us to utilize the anonymized information collected from your profile to continue our study of compatibility between an adopted child and adoptive family and or foster child and foster family. We will use this information for this purpose in a non-identified way.

Family-Match may keep track of the websites and pages our users visit within Family-Match, in order to determine what Family-Match services are the most popular. This data is used to deliver customized content to customers whose behavior indicates that they are interested in a particular subject area.
Sharing of Your Personal Information
Family-Match may share data collected with trusted partners to help us manage and improve our application. These partners may perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, or arrange for deliveries of post placement care packages. All such third parties are prohibited from using your information except to provide these services to Family-Match, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

Family-Match does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties.

Family-Match will disclose your information, without notice, only if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Family-Match; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Family-Match; or, (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of Family-Match, or the public.
Home Study Upload
To encourage the efficient evaluation of prospective resource families for placement considerations, families are encouraged to upload their home study to Family-Match. Family-Match sets its default settings to allow for credentialed placement workers, with a registered Family-Match login, to view and download the home study report. This setting can be changed in your account settings at any time.

If you do not have access to your home study, Family-Match has created a way for your licensing agent to upload your report to Family-Match. Once uploaded by an agent or agency on your behalf, you will not have access to view or download this report, or to manage the security settings for it. Your report will be accessible only by placement workers with a registered login. By participating on Family-Match you acknowledge your home study may be uploaded and shared with placement workers who are using Family-Match to identify resource families for waiting children.
Third-Party Links and Websites
The Website may contain links to websites of other third parties. Family-Match encourages you to review the privacy statements of websites you choose to link to from Family-Match so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and share your information. Family-Match is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites outside of the Family-Match Website.
Security of your Personal Information
Family-Match uses reasonably physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to secure your information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. However, no security program is 100% secure, and thus we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information.

When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, Family-Match uses GeoTrust to protect it through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
Children Under Thirteen
The Family-Match services are not intended for use by children under the age of 13. All use on behalf of children is done through licensed placement agencies who have custody of the child(ren) in need of a placement resource. If you are a parent and you have questions regarding our data collection practices, please contact us using the information provided at the end of this Statement of Privacy.
Opt-Out & Unsubscribe
We respect your privacy and give you an opportunity to opt-out of receiving announcements of certain information. Users may opt out of receiving emails from Family-Match by clicking the "unsubscribe" button on one of our emails. Users may also opt-out of receiving any or all communications from Family-Match by contacting us here:
support@family-match.org
Changes to this Statement
Family-Match will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. Family-Match encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how Family-Match is protecting your information.
Contact Information
Family-Match welcomes your questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy. If you believe that Family-Match has not adhered to this Policy, please contact Family-Match at:

Family-Match
PO Box 1532
Brunswick, Georgia 31521

Email Address:
support@family-match.org

Do you need assistance with language translation? Send an email to support@adoption-share.com
, (C) Adoption-Share, Inc. 501 (c) 3 Non Profit Organization. All Rights Reserved.