Code of Conduct
Last Updated – 5/14/08
All NILMDTS Members are required to adhere to the following standards which are in place in an effort to best maintain quality control of the program assuring a uniform donation from each photographer to each family served. These measures are also in place to ensure a uniform manner in which our volunteer representatives interact at the hospitals where they are providing service. We are to conduct our volunteerism with as little disruption to the NICU and the Labor and Delivery areas as possible.
The following is the Code of Conduct (the “Code”) for all volunteers and employees of Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation, a non-profit corporation incorporated in Colorado (the “Foundation”). The purpose of the Code is to provide the Foundation’s volunteers, employees or its other representatives rules of conduct when performing services for or on behalf of the Foundation (the “Services”), such that Services are provided in a uniform, considerate and professional manner.
1. When you are in the hospital for the purpose of providing Services, you are a guest of the family and must conduct Services with as little disruption to the hospital as possible, including the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (“NICU”) and the labor and delivery areas. Be mindful that hospital staff are working and do not have time to socialize with hospital guests. You must refrain from being a distraction to doctors, nurses and other hospital staff and limit the amount of contact you have with them as they are busy taking care of patients.
2. If you feel you must address an issue with hospital staff in connection with the Services, you should make an appointment. Hospital staff and administration appreciate the work and efforts of the Foundation, its volunteers and employees, but they are conducting business and cannot always accommodate an impromptu visit or discussion in connection with the Services.
3. Conduct the Services in a professional, humble and respectful manner. Exhibit at all times respectful and proper behavior, sensitive to the bereaved family, when interacting with the hospital staff and the bereaved family.
4. When you are at the hospital to provide Services, whether you are inside the NICU, the labor and delivery areas, or other hospital areas, you must contain your activity to the vicinity of the family you are called to serve. If you must wait to conduct the Services, remain in appropriate waiting areas provided by the hospital or as directed by hospital staff. Roaming throughout the NICU or certain other hospital areas is a violation of patient privacy and a health concern for the infants as well as Foundation volunteers and employees.
5. Leave the hospital promptly when you are finished providing the Services.
6. Volunteers providing professional photography services must promptly take adequate backup measures (burn a CD of the raw images) and promptly thereafter complete the logging of the session on the Foundation’s main web site at: www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org.
7. Volunteers providing professional photography services shall deliver to the bereaved family within 8 weeks of the photography session date, professionally retouched, reasonably free of defects, portraits of such family’s infant on an archival DVD or CD, which allows for the portraits to be printed.
8. Promptly reply by either accepting or declining a request for Services by hospitals or the Foundation’s area coordinators. Some response in either manner must be promptly provided.
9. Volunteers should promptly pay the Foundation’s annual membership fee by the due date provided by the Foundation or timely request, and receive in writing, a waiver thereof from the Foundation.
10. Familiarize yourself with the materials and information on the Forum at www.nowisleep.com.
11. If you are involved in any manner in the representation of the Foundation in the media, representations you make about or on behalf of the Foundation must be proper and accurate.
12. Use of your affiliation with the Foundation to solicit or promote your personal photography or other business is prohibited.
13. Treat any and all information, whether or not in writing, that is shared with you by the Foundation or any others for or in connection with the Services, and which is not otherwise available to the public, as confidential to the full extent permitted by law.
14. Provide immediate written notice to the Foundation of the receipt or service of any subpoena or other legal process directed to you regarding any Services performed or in any way relating to the Foundation.
The Foundation retains the authority to immediately deactivate or suspend volunteer memberships or to suspend or remove employees from their positions with the Foundation, if the Foundation deems, in its sole discretion, through its Board of Directors or other authorized committee or representative, that such individual has not fully complied with the Code.
