Vivek, thank you for your reply. If I collapse the widget, as you have suggested, then the footer will not be open when viewing the page. I did what you're suggesting in the second link above.
I need for the widget to be open by default when a user lands on the page. Does that make sense? From a UX perspective, the content needs to be visually apparent (yet collapsable). (Again, I achieved this result at one point, but am unable to get the accordion to behave in this way again.) Did I misunderstand your solution? Thanks for your help!