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About Us and Our Courses How long have you been in business? Will you sell my information to marketers, spammers, or others, or bombard me with emails or calls? What are your hours of operation?
Ordering Courses How Soon Do I Get Access to My Purchased Course(s)? How Can I Find Out More Information About a Course? My Spouse and I Both Need to Take the Training -- What Do I Do?
Taking Courses, Tests, and Obtaining Certificates How Long Do I Have to Take My Purchased Course? Can I Print the Course Material Out to Study Later or Away From the Computer? How Do I Get to My Course to Read the Material? How Do I Take the Test After Reading the Course Material? When I Click to Take the Test, Nothing Happens -- What is Wrong? How Many Test Questions Can I Miss and Still Pass ? I Received My Certificate, but Then I Lost It -- Can I Get Another?
Getting Help Help -- I Need Somebody . . . !
How long have you been in business? We have been providing online information to foster and adoptive families, social workers, and others involved in the care of children since 1994 -- when the Internet was in its infancy. We have been providing our online training in its current form since 2003. Will you sell my information to marketers, spammers, or others, or bombard me with emails or calls? ABSOLUTELY NOT. We greatly value the privacy of our customers. Under no circumstances do we EVER sell or give your information to marketers, spammers, or anyone else. You will NEVER get a telemarketing phone call from us, and we send unsolicited emails only very, very rarely if at all. What are your hours of operation? For ordering and taking courses and obtaining certificates, we operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The large majority of our customers can do everything they need to do right on our website, at whatever time is most convenient for them. If you need assistance, however, we are more than happy to help. Help is usually available 7 days a week, 365 days a year. However, help is NOT available 24 hours a day (we need to sleep occasionally!). You can email us or contact us through the website (explained below) 24 hours a day, but please do not expect an immediate response if it is in the middle of the night! We will respond to such emails in the morning. We have several ways that you can easily request help: Send us an email. You can send an email to barbara@fosterparents.com at any time. You can also reply to any email you receive from us (such as the automated receipts you receive when you place an order). We constantly check emails during the day. Often you will receive a response within minutes, and almost always you will receive a response within an hour or so. Because we are a small company, occasionally none of us are at a computer -- therefore, sometimes (though not often) it may take several hours to receive a response. We appreciate your patience. Use the "contact us" link on our website (or click here). This sends us an email with the information you enter on the form. Therefore, the response time is the same as for emails. Give us a call. Our telephone number is (818) 998-4462. We are usually available from about 9 am to 11 pm PACIFIC TIME (we are located in Los Angeles, California ). PLEASE do not call in the middle of the night (and especially all you fine folks located on the East Coast, please remember the time difference (it is 3 hours earlier here than by you) and do not call us first thing in the morning your time!). If you get our answering machine, please leave a message. We will call you back. However, PLEASE remember to leave your phone number, your name, and a brief description of what you need. Please speak slowly and clearly and spell your name. Sometimes we get messages with no identifying information, or information that is completely indecipherable even after we listen to the message 5 times or more. We can't call you back if we don't know who you are. There is no need to leave your order or transaction number -- we can look your order up from your name. Do You Speak Spanish? Unfortunately, none of us speak more than a smidgeon of Spanish, so we cannot provide customer service in Spanish. We do, however, offer a small (but growing) number of courses in Spanish. For a list of such courses and to order, click here.
Ordering Courses How Soon Do I Get Access to My Purchased Course(s)? Unlike our public site (where customers pay for their own courses online, using a debit or credit card or online checking), which is 100% automated and 24/7/365, orders through our contracted agency sites (where an agency pays us directly for your training, so there is no cost to you) are processed manually. That means that you won't receive access to your courses immediately. Most orders not placed during the middle of the night are filled within the hour (many are filled within minutes), but occasionally daytime orders might take several hours to fill if no one is in the office at the time. Orders placed during the middle of the night are filled in the morning. If you are with one of our contracted agencies, and they told you to place your order through our agency specific website for your agency, you must do so if you want your agency to pay for your courses. Please do NOT purchase courses through our public site planning to have us later refund the charge to your card and bill your agency instead. Because of the billing and credit card fees involved in processing transactions, and the additional fees involved in refunds, we will have to refuse such requests. How Can I Find Out More Information About a Course? If you click on any of the course titles on our list of courses, a window will open up and provide a description of that course. Please note that the course titles do not look like links -- they will not change your mouse pointer to a hand. But they are links, and will open the window with the course description if you click on them. If you click on them and nothing happens, you may need to shut off your pop-up blocker. Click here for more information about pop-up blockers. My Spouse and I Both Need to Take the Training -- What Do I Do? No problem! There are two possible ways to proceed, depending on your agency's requirements. If your agency will accept a joint certificate -- for example, "John and Mary Smith" -- then the two spouses can read the material and take the test together. When you are ready to take the test, enter "John and Mary" for the first name, and Smith for the last name. Then, once you pass the test, your certificate will read "John and Mary Smith." If your agency requires separate certificates, then you each must take the test. When John Smith takes the test he enters his name, and when Mary Smith takes the test she enters her name. Then you will get two certificates, one in each name. Please note that regardless of which of the above options you choose, you must order the course(s) for both of you (which you can do either by placing two separate orders or by placing one order listing both your names). Do I Need an Email Address? Yes. Your order cannot be processed without an email address. However, there are many free mail services available on the internet. Two popular ones are Yahoo.com and Hotmail.com. If you don't have an email account, simply sign up for a free one before placing your order with us. Taking Courses, Tests, and Obtaining Certificates How Long Do I Have to Take My Purchased Course? Your course links will expire in fourteen days. However, if you are unable to complete your courses by then, it is not a problem -- just let us know, and we will send you new links to your ordered courses. The easiest way to let us know is to reply to your receipt email. Can I Print the Course Material Out to Study Later or Away From the Computer? Absolutely! One of the many advantages of our courses is that you can print out the material for future reference. Of course, you may not distribute the material to others. How Do I Get to My Course to Read the Material? After you place your order, you will be emailed links to your course(s). Click a link, and you will be at the reading material. You can save that in your "bookmarks" (or "favorites" on some browsers) to make it easy to return. How Do I Take the Test After Reading the Course Material? Down at the bottom of the reading material, you click on any part of the two sentences beginning with "Click here to take ................. test." Please make sure you do not have a popup blocker enabled. If you actually click on the sentence (it does not look like a link, and it will not turn your mouse pointer to a hand, but it is a link) and it didn't do anything, then you have a pop-up blocker enabled. Turn it off (for help with that, read the next question and answer), and click on the sentence again. It will work fine. When I Click to Take the Test, Nothing Happens -- What is Wrong? If you actually clicked on the sentence beginning with "Click here to take ................. test" (it does not look like a link, and it will not turn your mouse pointer to a hand, but it is a link) and it didn't do anything, then you have a pop-up blocker enabled. When you click on the sentence to take the test, we need to open a new window for the test. A pop-up blocker prevents that from happening. Turn it off, and click on the sentence again. It will work fine. How to turn off your pop-up blocker depends on your exact browser. Generally, when you click on the link and nothing happens due to a pop-up blocker, you will see a message somewhere on your browser that the pop-up was blocked. This might be a horizontal yellow bar towards the top of your browser, or it may be elsewhere. If you click on that notification, you will be given options, including "allow pop-ups from this site." Choose that, and click on the sentence again. Also, on many browsers, holding down the Control ("Ctrl") button on your keyboard while clicking on the sentence will allow the pop-up. In the unlikely event you continue to have difficulty, simply contact us. We are always happy to help. How Many Test Questions Can I Miss and Still Pass ? A passing score on all of our tests is 80%. If you do not pass the test, you may take it over again, as often as necessary (at no additional charge), until you do pass. However, each time you must take the entire test. We do not give out hints on any test question, and we do not tell you which questions you missed in order to maintain the security and usefulness of the test. How Do I Get My Certificate? Immediately after you complete a test, you will be given your score and told if you passed. If so, you will be told to click for your certificate. Then click "Download or Print." You will see your certificate right on your screen. You can print it from there, or download it to your computer as a .jpg file (just like a picture from a digital camera) by right-clicking (press the right button on your mouse) and choosing "save this picture [or image] as." Once you have downloaded the certificate to your computer, you can print it, store it, or email it to whomever you like. If you cannot find your certificate using the above procedure, it means that you are not entering your name or email address exactly as you did when you took the test. For example, you might be entering "Mike" instead of "Michael." Or you might have made a typo when you took the test. Regardless, do not worry -- even if you can't find it, it is there. Simply contact us and we will be happy to find it for you. I Received My Certificate, but Then I Lost It -- Can I Get Another? Absolutely! We store every certificate in our database, which can be accessed by you 24/7. You just need to know the exact first and last name and email address you entered when you started the test. On our main ordering page (with the list of all of our courses), towards the top to the right of the instructions, look for "Retrieve Lost or Misplaced Certificates" and click on the appropriate year. Or for the current year, simply click here. Enter your name and email address and click the button. A list of your certificates will be shown. Click on whichever one you want, and then click "Download or Print." You will see your certificate right on your screen. You can print it from there, or download it to your computer as a .jpg file (just like a picture from a digital camera) by right-clicking (press the right button on your mouse) and choosing "save this picture [or image] as." Once you have downloaded the certificate to your computer, you can print it, store it, or email it to whomever you like. If you cannot find your certificate using the above procedure, it means that you are not entering your name or email address exactly as you did when you took the test. For example, you might be entering "Mike" instead of "Michael." Or you might have made a typo when you took the test. Regardless, do not worry -- even if you can't find it, it is there. Simply contact us (click here) and we will be happy to find it for you.Getting Help Help -- I Need Somebody . . . ! For ordering and taking courses and obtaining certificates, we operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The large majority of our customers can do everything they need to do right on our website, at whatever time is most convenient for them. If you need assistance, however, we are more than happy to help. Help is usually available 7 days a week, 365 days a year. However, help is NOT available 24 hours a day (we need to sleep occasionally!). You can email us or contact us through the website (explained below) 24 hours a day, but please do not expect an immediate response if it is in the middle of the night! We will respond to such emails in the morning. We have several ways that you can easily request help: Send us an email. You can send an email to barbara@fosterparents.com at any time. You can also reply to any email you receive from us (such as the automated receipts you receive when you place an order). We constantly check emails during the day. Often you will receive a response within minutes, and almost always you will receive a response within an hour or so. Because we are a small company, occasionally none of us are at a computer -- therefore, sometimes (though not often) it may take several hours to receive a response. We appreciate your patience. Use the "contact us" link on our website (or click here). This sends us an email with the information you enter on the form. Therefore, the response time is the same as for emails. Give us a call. Our telephone number is (818) 998-4462. We are usually available from about 9 am to 11 pm PACIFIC TIME (we are located in Los Angeles, California ). PLEASE do not call in the middle of the night (and especially all you fine folks located on the East Coast, please remember the time difference (it is 3 hours earlier here than by you) and do not call us first thing in the morning your time!). If you get our answering machine, please leave a message. We will call you back. However, PLEASE remember to leave your phone number, your name, and a brief description of what you need. Please speak slowly and clearly and spell your name. Sometimes we get messages with no identifying information, or information that is completely indecipherable even after we listen to the message 5 times or more. We can't call you back if we don't know who you are. There is no need to leave your order or transaction number -- we can look your order up from your name.
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