In the market for a childcare provider? If you’re a parent who also has a career, childcare is a necessity. It’s an important role. The provider you choose will spend a significant amount of time with your child and will be responsible for their care and even their development at an early age.
One of the most challenging things in choosing a childcare provider is determining whether the person is trustworthy. Obviously, you need someone you can trust. However, it’s hard to truly determine if someone is trustworthy in a job interview.
One way to get a better understanding of a person’s history is to conduct a criminal background check. You may feel like performing a criminal background check is intrusive, but it’s a very necessary step in the hiring process.
There are a few resources you can use to check a provider’s criminal background. One quick one is the lookupinmate.org website where you can view whether a person was ever incarcerated. Check out more resources below to check your potential childcare provider.
Tools to Check Criminal Background
How do you conduct a criminal background check? If you’ve never done it before, it may seem like a daunting task. Fortunately, there are some resources that can make it easier.
One of the most effective resources is an FBI fingerprint check. The FBI fingerprint database is comprehensive and includes fingerprints of everyone arrested for a federal crime. Every police station offers fingerprint tests for a small fee. You can pay the fee and have your provider go to the station for their test.
It can take weeks for the FBI test to come back, so it’s wise to do it early in the interview process. This will at least tell you if they have ever been arrested at the federal level.
Another important resource is the National Sex Offender Registry. Obviously, you don’t want anyone who is on that list anywhere near your child. Unfortunately, many sex offenders go into childcare because it provides easy access to vulnerable targets. You can run a search on the national registry in a matter of minutes.
During the interview process, get your potential provider’s addresses for the past seven years. Then check the criminal databases in every state listed. This will show you potential arrests that may not show up on the state level.
Many states also have their own sex offender and child abuse registries. Technically, all sex offenders should be on the national registry, but that’s not always the case. Double checking the state-level registries will help you make sure you’ve checked every box.
The child abuse registries are for people who have been arrested for domestic violence, child neglect, and other non-sexual crimes against children. Again, if a provider’s name is on this list, that should be an automatic disqualification.
Who should be checked?
Obviously the most important person to check is the person interviewing for the job. However, that’s not the only person you should conduct a criminal background check on. It’s possible that others could be involved in the childcare. In that case, those people should be checked as well.
For example, assume the care happens in the provider’s home. Will other adults be home when your child is there? Perhaps a spouse or an adult child? If so, they should be background checked as well.
Even if the care will happen in your home, ask if other adults will be present. Perhaps the provider will bring a friend with them on some days to assist. If so, that person should be checked. Any adult who will be involved in the care of your children should undergo a criminal background check.
Again, you may feel intrusive or uncomfortable asking for this information. However, it’s critical to the care and safety of your child. Child predators are skilled at gaining trust and access to children. Just because someone seems trustworthy doesn’t mean they actually are.
A criminal background check can help you pull back the curtain and see who you are really hiring. If the check comes back clean, then you have peace of mind that your child is in good hands. Peace of mind is invaluable when it comes to the safety of your children.
There are companies that will perform a comprehensive background check for a fee. You may find that is a more efficient and convenient option than running all of these checks yourself. Contact a background check company for more information.