Trust & Safety

The Beyond Breakfast Foundation serves youth ages 8–24. Protecting our scholars is our highest priority.

All mentors, volunteers, and staff undergo comprehensive background screening, including national criminal-records checks, sex-offender registry checks, and reference verification before they may interact with any youth participant.

We maintain a mandatory-reporter culture: every adult in our programs is trained to recognize and report signs of abuse or neglect in accordance with state and federal law.

One-on-one interactions between adults and youth take place only in observable, program-approved settings. Digital mentorship sessions are logged for safeguarding purposes (content of personal journal entries is never included in these logs).

We comply fully with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). For any participant under 13, we collect only the minimum personal information necessary to deliver program services, and only after obtaining verifiable parental consent.

Personal journal entries written by scholars are stored locally within our secure systems and are never transmitted to, synced with, or shared with any external platform, analytics service, or third party — including our parent organization's hub. Only anonymized engagement signals (such as completion status and streak counts) are shared for program reporting.

We do not store passwords locally. Authentication is handled through our parent organization's secure, centralized identity platform (The Unique Scholars Institute Hub).

Parents and guardians may request access to, correction of, or deletion of their child's personal data at any time by contacting us at [email protected].

When our programs operate in partnership with schools or districts, we comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).

Student education records received from partner schools are treated as confidential and are used solely for the purpose of delivering program services. We do not disclose education records to third parties without written parental consent except as permitted under FERPA.

Survey or evaluation instruments used in our programs do not require scholars to reveal sensitive personal information without prior parental notification and opt-out opportunity, consistent with PPRA requirements.

We are committed to making our website and digital resources accessible to all users, including individuals with disabilities, in conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA.

Our design practices include: sufficient color-contrast ratios (minimum 4.5:1 for normal text), keyboard-navigable interfaces, semantic HTML structure, descriptive alt-text for images, and responsive layouts tested down to 360px viewports.

If you experience any accessibility barrier on our site, please contact us at [email protected] so we can address it promptly.

The Beyond Breakfast Foundation, as a program of The Unique Scholars Institute, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

This nondiscrimination policy applies to all program activities, admissions, employment, and services in compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all other applicable federal and state civil-rights statutes.

Every mentor and volunteer applicant completes a multi-step screening process before being approved:

1. Written application with personal references

2. In-person or video interview with program leadership

3. National criminal-background check and sex-offender registry check

4. Mandatory orientation covering youth-protection policies, mandatory-reporting obligations, and appropriate-boundaries training

5. Ongoing supervision, with periodic re-screening at least every two years

Any individual who fails any component of this screening, or who is found to have provided false information, is permanently disqualified from participation.

The Beyond Breakfast Foundation operates as a program under The Unique Scholars Institute (USI), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization. USI provides centralized oversight, policy governance, and compliance monitoring across all its pillar programs.

Our trust and safety policies are reviewed annually by USI leadership and updated as required by changes in law, regulation, or best practice.