|
The minute you meet someone, you begin screening
them. You are evaluating everything about them. You
begin trying to rely on your "gut" feeling
and subconsciously begin to pick up clues about your
candidate's "suitability".
For obvious reasons, you can not rely on your "gut
instinct" when it comes to screening volunteers.
It is important to use a structured procedure instead
of making haphazard, and potentially arbitrary, decisions.
Your organization must have a fair and defensible
screening method.
There is no longer a debate about whether or not
your organization should screen volunteers. The debate
is now "how" you should screen your volunteers.
For most organizations, cost is a factor in deciding
what type of screening to conduct. Unfortunately,
many organizations make this "the" most
important factor when conducting their criminal background
checks. Instead of considering the quality of the
screening, they focus solely on cost and often end
up using an outdated internet database that has huge
"gaps" or "holes" in it. This
can have tragic consequences.
For example, even the State of Texas' own Department
of Public Safety criminal database is incomplete.
A recent study showed that the Texas Department of
Public Safety online instant criminal records database
revealed no criminal records for many of the inmates
currently on Texas’ Death Row. Most other state databases
have the same issues.
So, if you can't fully rely on a state's own criminal
database, what's an organization to do?
As a private investigations company, we are able
to access information that is not available to the
typical screening company or available to the general
public. The most important thing to consider when
conducting criminal background checks is the "freshness"
or "accuracy" of the information contained
in the report. One of the best ways to ensure that
you are getting the most up to date criminal information
is to conduct a direct county verification. The county's
data is usually the most current and up to date.
First Check provides volunteer screening reports
to many organizations across the country. Instead
of dictating to you what type of screening you should
conduct, we like to visit with you and find out what
you want to accomplish with your volunteer screening
and we must also consider your budget. Based on our
conversation, we will make a recommendation to you
with a few different options for your screening reports.
Our most common volunteer screening reports typically
include a validation of the volunteer's name, social
security number, date of birth, driver's license information,
criminal background, and of course, sex offender status.
Our "packaged" or "bundled" products
are very competitively priced and provide a much higher
quality screening than relying on an outdated, online,
criminal database search.
We also understand that your organization is not
in the business of gathering and maintaining the paper
applications or protecting and safeguarding the personal
or "non public information" of your applicants.
Knowing this, we offer you the ability to send
your applicants to our secure web site where they
enter their own personal information and we notify
you with the results.
We also realize that many organizations still collect
information on their applicants in a paper format
or volunteer application, so we still accept paper
applications. Once we have your application, we enter
the data into our system, conduct the screening you
have selected, and return the reports and a summary
of the results to you. We will also return the paper
applications or properly destroy them on your behalf.
It's simple to get an account set up with us. Just
complete our service agreement and we will get your
account set up. We will contact you to discuss what
type of reports you would like to use to screen your
volunteers.
Or if you would like to get a price
quote first, just let us know.
Don't risk harm to your patrons or the children you
are trying to protect by using a substandard background
check.
Better Check with us First......after all, your applicant's
past is your future.
|
