Care.com Announces Formation of Safety Advisory Council
Care.com has established a Safety Advisory Council to enhance its safety protocols, composed of experts including Janice K. Fedarcyk, Tom Siegel, and Glen Pounder. Chaired by General Counsel Melanie Goins, the Council aims to guide Care.com in advancing industry safety standards. The initiative follows the hire of Megan Poonolly as Head of Safety. New measures include in-platform video interviews and enhanced screening tools, reinforcing Care.com's commitment to prioritizing safety for families and caregivers. The Council's first meeting is set for Q1.
- Formation of a Safety Advisory Council enhances safety protocols.
- Appointment of experienced professionals from law enforcement and safety sectors.
- Implementation of new safety measures including video interviews.
- Commitment to continually improve safety standards in the online care industry.
- None.
Care.com, the world’s leading platform for finding and managing high-quality family care, today announced the formation of a Safety Advisory Council. The Safety Advisory Council is a cross-disciplinary group of subject matter experts, advocates, and practitioners who will serve as a resource to Care.com leadership, providing expertise on a range of matters pertaining to Care.com’s safety protocols. The Council will be chaired by Care.com’s General Counsel, Melanie Goins. Today’s announcement follows Care.com’s hire of Megan Poonolly — former Senior Counsel for Safety at Uber — as Head of Safety last October, whose charge is to ensure safety is a primary focus throughout Care.com’s entire organization.
In addition to Ms. Poonolly who will serve as lead coordinator and a permanent member, Council appointees announced today include:
- Janice K. Fedarcyk, President, Fedarcyk Consulting LLC and Retired Assistant Director in Charge, FBI New York Office
- Tom Siegel, CEO, Trust Lab
- Glen Pounder, Chief Operating Officer, Child Rescue Coalition
Care.com CEO Tim Allen said, “Each member of the Safety Advisory Council is a leader in their field of expertise and brings unique and valuable perspective to the safety challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Care.com. I look forward to partnering with them to build on our significant recent progress in our continuous pursuit of safety for our community.”
Mr. Allen continued, “The safety of the Care.com families and caregivers is a top priority, and while our protocols reflect the standard for the online care industry, as the industry leader we’re committed to continually raising the bar.”
The Safety Advisory Council’s mission is to help guide Care.com as it continually advances safety standards for the industry, striving to create the safest possible environment for families, care recipients and caregivers alike. The Safety Advisory Council will lend its counsel on safety best practices across the care industry, digital platforms, and other similar businesses. The Council’s purview will extend across all aspects of safety from new technology and tools to reporting practices. Additional Safety Advisory Council members will be announced in the coming months. The Council will convene for the first time in Q1.
Care.com has also implemented several additional safety measures including:
- In-platform video interviews, which allow for face-to-face communication before families and caregivers meet in person.
- Plans for the installation of an enhanced ongoing negative media screening and monitoring tool by the end of Q1. The tool will surface concerning, publicly reported information about selective Care.com members faster and more effectively.
- Enhanced blocklist capabilities to help ensure that bad actors cannot reuse data, such as Social Security numbers, to re-enter the site.
Last year, Care.com, the dominant digital care marketplace, confirmed that all caregivers on the site had been screened and passed a CareCheck, a detailed background check, as part of the Company’s security protocols. All newly enrolling caregivers must complete the CareCheck before they are granted access to the platform.
Additional elements of the Care.com safety program include the monitoring of messages between community members to detect inappropriate behavior, language, and fraud, and a robust education program to encourage members to follow best practices and make use of available resources, among other protocols.
About Care.com
Available in more than 20 countries, Care.com is the world's leading platform for finding and managing high-quality family care. Care.com is designed to meet the evolving needs of today’s families and caregivers, offering everything from household tax and payroll services and customized corporate benefits packages covering the care needs of working families, to innovating new ways for caregivers to be paid and obtain professional benefits. Since 2007, families have relied on Care.com’s industry-leading products—from child and elder care to pet care and home care. Care.com is an IAC company (NASDAQ: IAC).
Safety Advisory Council Member Bios
Janice K. Fedarcyk
Janice K. Fedarcyk retired from the FBI in 2012, where she served for 25 years. Ms. Fedarcyk culminated her career as the Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) of the FBI’s New York Office, the largest of the FBI’s field offices and the first and only woman to hold this position. Under her leadership, Ms. Fedarcyk led efforts in counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigations. Earlier in her career, Ms. Fedarcyk was the first FBI liaison detailed to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). She subsequently led investigations involving sexual exploitation of children through the use of the internet under the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative.
Ms. Fedarcyk is a recipient of the U.S. Government Presidential Rank Award; the Frederick D. Suydam Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement; and the Respect for Law Alliance Federal Law Enforcement Leader Award and was named by the Philadelphia Business Journal as a “Woman of Distinction.”
Upon her retirement, Ms. Fedarcyk formed Fedarcyk Consulting LLC – a Woman-Owned Small Business – to assist government and private industry in assessing security vulnerabilities and developing solutions to mitigate identified areas of threat and risk. She has served as a subject matter expert on panels regarding due diligence for hiring employees in public-facing positions. Ms. Fedarcyk provided sworn testimony before the U.S. Congress regarding homegrown radicalization and has contributed professional insight to national news outlets surrounding national security threats.
Ms. Fedarcyk holds a B.A. in Criminal Justice and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Nevada at Reno.
Ms. Fedarcyk’s debut novel “Fidelity,” a spy thriller, was published by Simon & Schuster.
Glen Pounder
Glen Pounder serves as Chief Operating Officer of Child Rescue Coalition.
He acts as the organization’s liaison with national and international law enforcement and other partners, driving collaboration to protect children through the use of CRC’s cutting-edge technology.
Throughout his more than 30-year law enforcement career, he has undertaken numerous investigative and team leadership roles combating child sexual abuse and many other forms of serious crime. Glen played an instrumental role in the establishment of a counter narcotics coordination center (MAOC-N) whilst serving as the UK’s liaison officer in Portugal. He also served as the UK’s law enforcement liaison in the USA as well as establishing a new UK liaison office in Switzerland.
Glen is fluent in Portuguese and recently completed a Master’s degree in Internet Law and Policy from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.
He lives with his wife, two sons (and not to be forgotten rescue dog!) in South Florida.
Tom Siegel
Tom is co-founder and CEO of Trust Lab., a Trust & Safety technology company based in California. Previously Tom was the VP of Trust & Safety at Google for 10 years where he built the global organization through all stages of growth into an industry-leading user protection and abuse fighting organization. Tom’s portfolio included content safety, privacy and security protections for most of Google’s products including websearch, ads, payments, accounts, Gmail, and cloud. As the company’s most senior trust & safety executive, he set the company strategy and presented to the board. Tom volunteers with a number of civic organizations and is the co-founder of the “Fishbowl Challenge,” which supports the ambitions of young social entrepreneurs around the world. An Industrial Engineer by training, he got his M.S. at the University of Technology Dresden and MBA from Stanford.
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