More and more organizations are requiring criminal background checks on volunteer help. This is most prevalent in the education sector where K-12 schools are now mandating criminal background checks on their volunteers. This trend comes with caution and trepidation on the part of parents who want to do volunteer work for the school but are either hesitant to give up their personal information like their social security number or just don’t want to go through a background check. School officials state that they already have enough difficulty getting the volunteer help they need and by mandating background checks on such help they fear they will not get enough volunteer help to fill all the open positions. Certainly flexibility is needed when conducting background checks on school volunteers and school background screening policies need to reflect this.
The current majority view is that volunteer background checks are necessary for risk mitigation, weeding out potential malfeasants and also to reduce insurance rates. It is common understanding that volunteers that spend time with at-risk populations like children and the elderly should go through a criminal background check that includes a national sex offender search. However, schools and other organizations need to take into consideration the length of time since an offense occurred as well as to identify what offenses would result in not hiring the volunteer. Discretion should also be used to minimize the number of eye balls allowed to look at a volunteer person’s criminal history to avoid reputation damage and discrimination.
Right now the trend is clear as across the United States more and more schools and other organizations have been updating their employment screening policies to include volunteer help. To read more about volunteer background checks and protecting at-risk populations view recent CriminalBackgroundRecords.com press release: http://www.criminalbackgroundrecords.com/news/2104-10-21-Volunteer-Checks-A-Critical-Tool-in-All-Areas-of-Volunteering.html