Many sports leagues and youth activities require some amount of volunteer help. If a volunteer has supervision over children or routinely interacts with them it is important these volunteers undergo a proper background screening. Already extensive background checks including criminal background checks, sex offender registry searches and in some cases driving record checks and reference checks are used in the pre-employment screening arena. However since volunteers are not considered employees many of them never had to undergo a background check prior to working as a volunteer. This is changing and is evident by new laws requiring certain volunteers to undergo a background check similar to those used for employment screening purposes. The State of Florida recently introduced a new law aimed at increasing protection for children by requiring that every employee or volunteer who has routine interaction with children go through extensive background checks every three years.
Volunteers under this new law would be required to have a state criminal history, child abuse history and federal criminal history clearances. They define volunteer as any and all non-compensated athletic coaches, athletic trainers, equipment managers and others associated with school athletics; non-compensated band, musical or other performing arts assistants including managers, choreographers, directors, acting or instrumental coaches and others with similar roles; and non-compensated chaperones who assist with field trips or overnight trips and may have direct supervision over students. In the end if the goal is risk mitigation and to protect children than volunteers working with children must pass a thorough criminal background check that includes a national sex offender search.
To learn more about risk mitigation through volunteer background screening and new laws pertaining to the protection of children and volunteer background checks please read recent CriminalBackgroundRecords.com press release.