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6 Steps to Keep Your Ministry Safe
Selecting staff and volunteers you can trust.
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6. Are you using a thorough and fast background checking company? The Volunteers for Children Act signed in 1998 states that you can be sued for negligent hiring if you have an incident with one of your volunteers or employees and you did not conduct a national search to look for a previous criminal record. There are different kinds of background checks, from simple personal references to full criminal background checks, driving records, and social security verification. If you check if an applicant has criminal activity in only one state, then you are not carrying our your due diligence. Currently, 39 states can be searched for criminal activity and 32 states for their sexual offender registries, instant and online. You have a moral obligation to take preventive steps that may side-step a tragedy, and with our transient society, this is a must. Why should you conduct a social security number and date-of-birth verification? Deceptive people know how to beat the system. They know that to run a criminal background check all a background checking company needs is a name and a date of birth—any name and any date of birth. Most likely nothing will be found with that applicant. However, if you do a simultaneous investigation on a subject that includes searching criminal information and social security and date of birth verification, then you have done the most in-depth search possible. Make sure applicants are who they say they are. Many professionals agree that the church and other non-profits are the predator's last refuge. Perpetrators are looking for easy access to vulnerable youth, children, elderly and handicapped, and often, just seeing a volunteer application often tells perpetrators that they should move on. ChurchWorkerScreening.com, a website affiliated with ChurchStaffing.com, exists to help churches be as sure as they can that their children's volunteers are above reproach. |             |
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