Background Checks on Volunteers?

Because we want to create the safest, most secure environment possible for our church:

We do criminal background checks on all of our staff prior to hiring them. We add a sexual offender check if the staff member is going to be working with children or students.

We do criminal background checks on volunteers who work with children, students, security, or money. For those volunteers who work with children or students we do a sexual offender check as well.

All of our checks are run through SecureSearch from our Fellowship One church management software.

Our staff member responsible for Human Resources does all of the checks on staff.

For volunteers, there is one person per department who is responsible for running background checks on that department’s volunteers.

PROCESS
Before a volunteer begins to serve in an area where background checks are required, he/she is notified that a background check will be done and asked to complete a background check consent form.

The staff member uses the information from the background check consent form to request the background check in Fellowship One.

Fellowship One transmits the data to SecureSearch who runs the check.

The staff member who requested the check scans and emails an electronic copy of the consent form to the person responsible for Human Resources who attaches the file to the volunteer’s record in our database.

When the check is complete, SecureSearch sends it back to Fellowship One electronically and the electronic report is attached to the volunteer’s record in our database

The staff member who requested the background check is responsible for reviewing the check to assess the results.

If the check comes back clean, then the staff member marks the check “Approved” in the data base and moves on in the process.

If the check comes back with results, then the staff member is responsible for following up with the volunteer candidate. If the results disqualify the volunteer candidate, then the staff member updates the status to “Not Approved” in the database and helps the volunteer find another place to serve. If after further investigation the results don’t disqualify the volunteer candidate, then the staff member updates the status as “approved” in the database and moves on in the volunteer process.