Connect With Us
Please be aware this is the full version of the form that you see if you don’t log into the website – if you are filling this out for a second (or even more) time, we suggest registering a website account, and you can use the abbreviated form, since we will already have your information.
What to expect when you contact us.
The fastest way to get a response about something in our scope of work is to contact us either via the webform linked above in the “Contact Us Here” tab or by calling our intake line at (208) 342-5884 and leaving us a message. In most cases, if you are making a first contact, the form is the better way to do this.
Once you have left your message, a Parent Education Coordinator will make at least three attempts to contact you back. All messages are returned in the order they are received. Staff will be asking you for more information, including demographic information as we are a federally-funded center and have grant requirements to report anonymized information about who we help. Be assured that any of your personal information will be held strictly confidential.
We attempt to respond within 24 business hours to any request that comes to us via our webform or main phone intake. The exceptions are weekends, national holidays, or days in which our staff is either at an event or traveling. In those cases, your message may not be responded to until we are back in the office.
IPUL’s Event Calendar will always show days when IPUL staff is going to be unavailable. Additionally, our phone line will have a message on it to let you know if we are going to be unavailable for an extended period.
If you contact us about items in our scope of work via other methods, there may be a delay in responding to you. If messages are left on someone’s direct extension instead of using our intake process, you may experience a delayed response – the intake line is tracked and checked multiple times a day. We don’t always work out of the office, and may not see your message to our direct lines right away. We also do not directly monitor our social media accounts for questions that are left there.
We ask that if you are offering a commercial service of some kind that you do not use our intake system to do it. If you are looking to sell us a service of some kind, we ask that you limit your inquiry to sending us a contact email at our main email account – parents@ipulidaho.org.
Our company policy is that all staff have been instructed to respond to work-related messages only during our regular business hours (Monday-Friday; 9:00-5:00) or during their individually scheduled hours when they are each working using company equipment and resources only. If you contact employees with their personal messaging accounts, they are instructed to not respond, other than to direct you to our official channels.
If this is your first time asking us for help, please check out the “What We Do” tab first!
Asking for help via phone:
If you prefer to call us about something that is related to our scope of work, we ask that you do it via our intake line. We can return calls via voice and text message.
Please be sure that you have your voicemail set up. If we can’t reach you, we can’t help you.
Our Intake Line:
(208) 342-5884
You will be prompted to leave a message with the following information:
- Your name
- A contact number
- Child’s name and diagnosis (you can be very brief with the diagnosis)
- A short description of the issue you are calling about (we will get all the relevant details from you when we call you back) Our message system has a two minute limit.
- (optional) an email address.
We use an intake line to make sure that we can route your call to an available person to assist you.
If you have previously worked with someone at IPUL, you may reach them by dialing the person’s extension. However , if you are making first contact with us, the best way to have a timely response to your question is to use our intake form. The second best way is to leave a message on our intake line. If you attempt to reach someone by dialing extensions, this may dramatically increase the time until we respond. We travel frequently, and if our staff are out of the office they may not hear your message until they return.
If you are calling us about something that’s not in the scope of work, go ahead and leave a message on the intake line and we will route it to the appropriate person.
Email:
If you need to contact us about an issue that doesn’t fall in our scope of work, feel free to use our general-purpose email address: parents@ipulidaho.org.
Scope of work questions sent there will be replied to, but as this line is not monitored as heavily as our intake line, you may see an additional delay. We also have a form at the bottom of every page of our website for general (non-support) questions – you can fill that out instead of an email.
Idaho Parents Unlimited has a presence on multiple social media sites, but we do not monitor the comments or direct messaging on those sites for support. If you need assistance this is the best place to get it.
What we do:
- Provide individual assistance to families through calls, emails, and in-person meetings
- Provide options that you may have to resolve any individual issues
- Present monthly training workshops and webinars on a variety of topics
- Provide special request workshops at community events and/or conferences as well as for parent or professional groups
- Advocate for systems, programs, policies, and rules that have an impact on Idaho families
- Provide effective advocacy training and information for families and youth to best advocate for themselves.
- Provide Parent Leadership Development training annually to build on a growing list of parent mentors who can amplify our work across the state.
- Provide scholarships to parents to attend conferences or events related to your child’s disability.
- Provide arts education through our in-school/community center residencies and Work of Art Programs
- Listen and provide support
What we do NOT do:
- Provide general parenting training (ie: court ordered classes)
- Advocate on behalf of an individual child or family
- Attend IEP meetings
- Tell you what you should do
- Provide legal assistance or advice
- Endorse or promote specialty care providers, legal services, or schools/districts
- Provide 24-hour crisis services (we are not a crisis agency)
- Provide routinely scheduled art classes
Idaho Parents Unlimited’s Social Media Policy
Our company policy is that all staff have been instructed to respond to work-related messages only during our regular business hours (Monday-Friday; 9:00-5:00) or during their individually scheduled hours when they are each working using company equipment and resources only. If you contact employees with their personal messaging accounts, they are instructed to not respond, other than to direct you to our official channels.
Idaho Parents Unlimited has an online presence on several different platforms. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram. While we post things on these services, we do not monitor them for private messages. Facebook specifically has been unreliable in notifying us about private messages, due to having more than one page administrator. Therefore, if you send a message to our Facebook inbox, you will receive an automatic reply directing you to our website intake form or phone number. We prefer to use our systems that are designed to provide appropriate assistance.
These policies also apply regarding staff and their personal Facebook pages as well as other social media sites – including personal cell phones (text messaging). Frequently, our staff are tagged in posts on groups and expected to respond (or they feel obligated) after regular business hours. They also receive private instant messages via this technology as well.
The best way to ask us for help is via our intake system, available on our website at the link that says “Connect with us” or by calling our phone line at (208) 342-5884 and leaving a message on our intake line.