5 People In Your Child's Life Who Need Background Checks
As parents, you can never be too careful when it comes to who your kids are interacting with on a regular basis. You deserve to know everything, as this helps you protect your child against someone who may potentially inflict harm.
Lucky for parents, there are plenty of tools available to find out details about the people our children are interacting with. In a world teeming with information, all you have to do is a quick search to find the information you’re looking for.
Using an online people search tool to review those in your child’s life is easy, convenient, and instant. Naturally, this begs the question. –– who are the people you should conduct a background check on?
1. People Living in Your Home
This one may seem obvious, but it never hurts to look into the people living in your own home. You should never feel bad about looking for information about distant family members, friends, or those who live in the same home as you and your kids.
ChildCare.gov suggests running a background check on all adults living in a childcare home for extra safety measures. Even if it’s someone you trust, running a quick check can help uncover any undesired secrets.
2. Childcare Providers
Most likely, the next person who spends the most time with your child is your childcare provider. Whether this is an in-home babysitter, nanny, or out-of-home caretaker, this person spends a lot of time with your child(ren), making them next up on the list.
A childcare provider or babysitter having a lot of business from other parents doesn’t automatically make them trustworthy. However, if you hire a childcare provider through a trustworthy agency, you can have more trust in your decision. For example, when hiring au pairs, Go Au Pair conducts thorough vetting of their au pairs so you don't have to worry about it. Finding a trustworthy agency saves you time and ensures a background check has been run on your childcare provider, easing any apprehensions you may have about your child's safety.
3. Staff at Childcare Centers
We’d like to think that everyone who works at a childcare center absolutely adores children and is able to provide their utmost love and care at all times. While there are childcare centers known for just that, not all of them will provide care that is up to your standards.
Child Care Aware of America assures us that everyone working in a childcare center has, by law, received a federal background check. They state:
Federal law requires childcare providers to submit requests for background checks for each staff member.
Staff can begin working at a childcare facility before all pieces of the federal background check are completed, but they must be supervised at all times by a staff member who has successfully completed the background check.
Staff members must complete a background check at least once every 5 years.
Childcare providers may be hesitant or prohibited by current state laws to share the background checks of all their employees, for confidentiality purposes. Therefore, it’s best to run your own.
4. Adult Volunteers in Child Programs
Your kids may at some point be involved in extracurricular activities such as sports, tutoring, after-school programs, or other fun things.
Most schools hiring these staff run their own background checks prior to bringing them aboard, but you may not always have access to what those background checks uncover. Running your own background check helps keep you informed about who’s in charge of the programs your kids are in, but also, the standards your school has for the people they hire.
5. Child Activity Service Providers
Does your child take karate lessons? Music lessons? Dance classes? All of these activities have instructors that you should check into. Not only are these people around your child, but countless other local children. Doing a little digging is always smart.
Additionally, your child’s dentist and other medical service providers could use a good check as well. We’ve all heard horror stories about service providers who prey on kids. While it might be rare, it does happen and can often be prevented by looking.
Bottom line, anyone who spends time with your child on a regular basis deserves a background check. You deserve to know who your kids are spending time with, and in some cases, you’ll be glad you performed the check.
Sources:
Childcare.gov
202) 690-6782
Child Care Aware of America
1(800) 424-2246