Entrusting your children to the care of anyone other than a close family member or longtime friend can be a risky and difficult undertaking. As a parent, you unfortunately always have to be concerned about the safety of your children, regardless of where they may happen to be.
With horror stories associated with churches, schools and other establishments, which may have once been viewed as safe havens for children, becoming more and more prevalent in the news as places where children are mistreated or abused, your worries are certainly well founded. The fact is that you can never be too safe when it comes to your kids.
Choosing a daycare or preschool with rigorous safety protocols in place when it comes to its employees is simply the right thing to do. Advancements in technology, including the ready availability of information which comes with the digital age, makes thorough screening of potential and current employees a simple and easy task for childcare and educational facilities to achieve.
What Kind of Pre-Employment Screening Should You Expect?
The right facility will have a comprehensive pre-employment screening process in place for potential employees. This process should include criminal history checks, drug and alcohol screening, and a check of the social security listings and the sexual offender registry, in addition to reference and past employment surveys. The organization should check on any educational certificates or formal degrees potential employees claim to hold as well.
Don't be afraid to question schools or childcare businesses about the practices or to ask for proof of their adherence to their own screening policies. Having a pre-employment screening policy in place is one thing; following that policy consistently is another.
While you cannot be privy to background checks, drug screens or other screening information legally, you can request to see documentation of contractual agreements with different screening firms, businesses and services. Any organization which cannot provide you with such documentation is questionable in their claims.
You should also ensure that their screening methods are up to muster. Checking out the services they use can provide you some insight. Understanding the breadth of the screenings the school or daycare performs is another means of making sure your child is really as safe as possible.
For example, the performance of a criminal history search is not enough. Knowing where the search is performed will give you the information you need to determine if the facility's practices meet the highest standards possible.
Criminals don't often stay in just one place. For this reason, a local or state-level criminal history search may not turn up all convictions, pending charges, or outstanding warrants on an individual. A national database search is required for full assurance of a clean criminal record. Likewise, a national sex offender registry search will screen out any predators that are in the system anywhere in the nation.
Some companies perform pre-employment drug screens that don't look for all controlled substances and don't check alcohol blood levels either. In an effort to meet compliance standards but still save money, many organizations cut their drug screens down to the bare minimum. You should ask what the company's drug screen searches for and ensure that it is as comprehensive of a drug panel as possible, including the presence of alcohol.
You may also want to consider the type of drug screening that is conducted. Urine, blood and hair tests are all available. Each has its own weaknesses and benefits. A urine or blood test can be passed even when drugs were recently in the system. A hair test, however, gives a longer historical record of drug use and can be a means of catching drug users who only cleaned up long enough to get the job.
What Ongoing Procedures Should Be in Place?
Random drug and alcohol screening of employees should be standard with any place you choose to care for your children. Even a drug addict can pass a pre-employment urine test. Random screening helps limit the probability that your child will be in the care of a compromised individual.
An organization that truly cares about the safety of your kids should have strict disciplinary and conduct standards in place. These should include harsh action for any inappropriate conduct which occurs on or off the job. For instance, a daycare worker who is under investigation outside of work for child endangerment should be suspended during the course of the police investigation and any subsequent legal proceedings, if not permanently removed from his or her employment.
With horror stories associated with churches, schools and other establishments, which may have once been viewed as safe havens for children, becoming more and more prevalent in the news as places where children are mistreated or abused, your worries are certainly well founded. The fact is that you can never be too safe when it comes to your kids.
Choosing a daycare or preschool with rigorous safety protocols in place when it comes to its employees is simply the right thing to do. Advancements in technology, including the ready availability of information which comes with the digital age, makes thorough screening of potential and current employees a simple and easy task for childcare and educational facilities to achieve.
What Kind of Pre-Employment Screening Should You Expect?
The right facility will have a comprehensive pre-employment screening process in place for potential employees. This process should include criminal history checks, drug and alcohol screening, and a check of the social security listings and the sexual offender registry, in addition to reference and past employment surveys. The organization should check on any educational certificates or formal degrees potential employees claim to hold as well.
Don't be afraid to question schools or childcare businesses about the practices or to ask for proof of their adherence to their own screening policies. Having a pre-employment screening policy in place is one thing; following that policy consistently is another.
While you cannot be privy to background checks, drug screens or other screening information legally, you can request to see documentation of contractual agreements with different screening firms, businesses and services. Any organization which cannot provide you with such documentation is questionable in their claims.
You should also ensure that their screening methods are up to muster. Checking out the services they use can provide you some insight. Understanding the breadth of the screenings the school or daycare performs is another means of making sure your child is really as safe as possible.
For example, the performance of a criminal history search is not enough. Knowing where the search is performed will give you the information you need to determine if the facility's practices meet the highest standards possible.
Criminals don't often stay in just one place. For this reason, a local or state-level criminal history search may not turn up all convictions, pending charges, or outstanding warrants on an individual. A national database search is required for full assurance of a clean criminal record. Likewise, a national sex offender registry search will screen out any predators that are in the system anywhere in the nation.
Some companies perform pre-employment drug screens that don't look for all controlled substances and don't check alcohol blood levels either. In an effort to meet compliance standards but still save money, many organizations cut their drug screens down to the bare minimum. You should ask what the company's drug screen searches for and ensure that it is as comprehensive of a drug panel as possible, including the presence of alcohol.
You may also want to consider the type of drug screening that is conducted. Urine, blood and hair tests are all available. Each has its own weaknesses and benefits. A urine or blood test can be passed even when drugs were recently in the system. A hair test, however, gives a longer historical record of drug use and can be a means of catching drug users who only cleaned up long enough to get the job.
What Ongoing Procedures Should Be in Place?
Random drug and alcohol screening of employees should be standard with any place you choose to care for your children. Even a drug addict can pass a pre-employment urine test. Random screening helps limit the probability that your child will be in the care of a compromised individual.
An organization that truly cares about the safety of your kids should have strict disciplinary and conduct standards in place. These should include harsh action for any inappropriate conduct which occurs on or off the job. For instance, a daycare worker who is under investigation outside of work for child endangerment should be suspended during the course of the police investigation and any subsequent legal proceedings, if not permanently removed from his or her employment.
About the Author:
Instant People Check is a leading provider of an instant background check online. For just a few dollars you will learn a lot more about your potential new hire than they may want you to. You can do national or state-specific criminal records checks quickly and cheaply.
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