An AmeriCorps member in your program who works with youth has been arrested and convicted of molesting a child enrolled in your after-school recreation program. As the case unfolds, newspaper headlines and TV reports repeatedly link the words “AmeriCorps’’ and “sex offender,” casting a pall on the reputation of your otherwise worthy community efforts.

To make matters worse, the media discovers and reports that your program failed to conduct a criminal background check, a Corporation for National and Community Service (Corporation) requirement for all AmeriCorps members who have substantial contact with youth and other vulnerable persons, before it assigned the member to a local campus. What’s more, a criminal background check conducted by the media, using readily available law enforcement data, reveals that your AmeriCorps member is a repeat sex offender.

You issue an apology and announce that the member has been dismissed from your program. You promise to tighten your applicant screening procedures. But incalculable damage to your program and its reputation has likely already been done.

AmeriCorps programs are required to abide by myriad regulations under their grants of Federal funds from the Corporation. But there is probably no more important provision than the Corporation requirement for criminal background checks as part of the overall screening process for members and employees.

New Corporation regulations which went into effect November 23, 2007, require grantees in the AmeriCorps, VISTA, Senior Companion, and Foster Grandparent programs to check their State’s criminal registry and the National Sex Offender Public Registry (NSOPR) maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice, for any listings of applicants who enroll as program volunteers or are hired as grant-funded employees who would have “recurring access” to children, the disabled, and persons age 60 and older. For grant-funded staff and program volunteers involved in these programs prior to November 23, 2007, grantees must check only the NSOPR.

Under the regulation, any individuals found to be on the NSOPR, or, who refuse to consent to a state registry check, are deemed “unsuitable” for a Corporation-funded position. If an individual is found on a State criminal registry, and not the NSOPR, that individual’s eligibility is left for the program to decide, but the regulation requires that grantee program officials document consideration of the background check results prior to selection.

Grantees found to have violated this regulation will be denied reimbursements or costs under the grant, restricted or denied eligibility for future grants, and are responsible for reimbursing the Corporation for all education awards, accrued interest awards, salaries and other benefits allocated to participants and grantee staff deemed ineligible due to the lack of a criminal background check. The rule is codified at 45 C.F.R. §§ 2510; 2522, 2540, 2551, and 2552.

Criminal background checks should also be an integral part of volunteer recruiting and staff hiring for Senior Corps and Learn and Serve grantees. Elder abuse has been identified as a growing concern, on a par with child abuse. Many Senior Corps programs, including the Foster Grandparents Program and Senior Companions, place volunteers in direct – and often one-on-one – contact with children and the elderly. Learn and Serve volunteers and coordinators are also directly involved with youth in school settings.

How important and effective are criminal background checks? Consider the recent experience of the Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools in suburban Washington, DC. In 2004, Fairfax conducted checks on all 6,930 applicants for jobs at its K-12 campuses. The checks turned up 81 applicants, more than 1 percent of the total, with criminal records that posed an unacceptable risk to Fairfax students.

Recent program audits conducted by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) have detected a disturbing pattern of non-compliance with criminal background check grant provision requirements. In some cases, programs have failed to conduct the checks. Just as disturbing, other programs have failed to retain documentation proving that background checks were conducted for members working with youth and other vulnerable persons.

It is OIG audit policy to question all grant costs related to members working with youth for whom there is no documentation of a criminal background check. That includes outlays for living allowances and education awards. But while an audit finding may hit a program in its pocketbook, the OIG’s prime concern is to protect vulnerable populations by mandating strict compliance with criminal background check requirements.

Because laws governing volunteer and employee screening can vary from state to state, AmeriCorps, Senior Corps and Learn and Serve program directors should make themselves familiar with these statutes. For example, the Federal Child Protection Act of 1993 gives access to national criminal data, including fingerprint-based information, to “qualified entities,” including nonprofit groups that provide “care, treatment, education, training, instruction, supervision or recreation to children, the elderly, or individuals with disabilities.”

Program officials should also make an inventory of all available criminal databases, ranging from that maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to State and county court records, and make use of as many sources as possible in their screening efforts. Many of these records are accessible to the public, or to designated entities like nonprofits, via the Internet. Programs in States where such data is less accessible should utilize one of a number of private firms that conduct criminal background checks.

Information and training on effective screening and the use of criminal background checks is also available from a number of expert sources, including the Washington, DC-based Nonprofit Risk Management Center (www.nonprofitrisk.org). For example, in their training handbook, Center experts, citing recidivism rates and offender treatment data, note that persons with “any convictions for child sexual abuse, rape or other sexually exploitative offenses constitute an unacceptable level of risk extending throughout an individual’s life.”

The Center also advises its trainees to be wary of certain types of volunteer candidates, including those who have had extensive involvement in youth programs to the exclusion of activities involving persons of their own age level. While not an automatic cause for rejection, the Center’s experts caution that pedophiles and other sex offenders are often drawn to programs and situations where they can stalk their juvenile prey.

The Center’s Staff Screening Tool, which offers step-by-step guidance on criminal background checks and related issues, can be downloaded from the Corporation’s Internet site by clicking here.

The Virginia Mentoring Institute (www.mentoring.org/virginia), a nonprofit training group based at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, has also developed a handbook and course on volunteer screening that focuses on risk management. It advises program officials to screen applicants by using a variety of sources, including Department of Motor Vehicles driving records and Virginia State Police registries of convicted nonviolent and violent sex offenders, as well as a Department of Social Services site that lists persons convicted of child abuse and neglect.

Both training groups also advise that criminal background checks be conducted for paid program employees, as well as program members and volunteers. This advice is especially targeted at the hiring of employees who, as a part of their program supervisory duties, also have substantial contact with youth and other vulnerable persons.

Overall, the best policy for all grantee programs is to screen and, when in doubt, conduct additional background checks before hiring an employee or accepting and placing a member in service with young or other vulnerable individuals.

Failure to fully screen employees and volunteers can lead to problems of nightmarish proportions, especially for the young and other vulnerable persons whom lax program oversight has placed in harm’s way.

BACKGROUND CHECKLIST

• Conduct criminal background checks on ALL Americorps members, Foster Grandparents and Senior Companions who will have recurring contact with children, the elderly and other vulnerable persons.
  

• Demand identification from applicants and confirm the document's authenticity.
  

• Utilize available national, state and local sources of criminal background information, including DMV driving records and registries of convicted sex offenders, and child and elder abusers.
  

• If in doubt about a potential volunteer or employee, expand your screening or reject the applicant.
  

• Consult with experts and undergo training to set up an effective screening program.
  

• Review the Staff Screening Tool that can be downloaded from the Corporation’s Internet site by clicking here.
  

• It is best practice to educate yourself on recidivism rates for convicted sex offenders and other relevant topics.