Elements for Success
Open, Extensive Communication There are two keys to helping your organization change and sustain behaviors: the amount of communication that…
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Home / Screening & Hiring / Conduct a Risk Assessment
To strengthen your screening and hiring process, you can use the questions in Thinking About Risk to make decisions about what additional background screening practices you will utilize. Whether performed formally by an HR office, or with pencil and paper by a small business owner, these questions are designed to help you carefully examine the types of risk individuals in positions of trust with children may pose—focusing on opportunities for harm. The questions will help you think about your physical setting; the ages and vulnerabilities of the children/youth you serve; an applicant’s potential contact with the child/youth; the nature, duration, and frequency of that contact; and the level of supervision and monitoring of that contact. Based on the results of this analysis, you may need to pursue further screening.
Based on this assessment, positions should be assigned a risk designation:
These designations should correlate with your organization’s requirement for specific screening protocols, and should be indicated in your job descriptions. According to best practices, the higher the risk to children, the more in-depth the screening protocol for a position should be.
A screening protocol addressing multiple levels of risk applies to larger organizations with sufficient numbers of employees and volunteers serving in different functions, and with varying levels of interaction with children and youth. It’s not uncommon for organizations like this to pay for the services of a commercial vendor to conduct these types of multi-level background checks—from standard Massachusetts criminal records checks (CORI/SORI) to national, multi-state (especially those states in which the applicant has worked or volunteered previously), international, and Interpol criminal and sexual offense records searches.
For smaller YSOs and businesses with few employees or volunteers, where a manager or supervisor is responsible for screening and hiring applicants, and the risk is determined to be equivalent or level across positions in the organization, the policy could be equal treatment of all applicants, with a standard screening protocol that applies to applicants for all positions interacting with children and youth.
Sustainability
Open, Extensive Communication There are two keys to helping your organization change and sustain behaviors: the amount of communication that…
Sustainability
Long-term organizational change is a process of continuous review, evaluation, and communication. It includes regularly examining what is working…
Screening & Hiring
Your Youth-Serving Organization (YSO) should create protocols for the application, interviewing, and screening process. Each step of the process…
Screening & Hiring
State and federal laws and regulations require specific types of screening and background checks—particularly criminal and sexual offense records…
Training
Once you have identified your training expectations and standards and have researched current and available local and national training, explore…
Training
Training programs are offered to staff at least annually to heighten awareness of your commitment to safety and help create a culture of…
Sustainability
Common Implementation Roadblocks Natural conflicts exist between strategy and culture. These conflicts—if left unaddressed— predict that…
Training
Parents and other caregivers need to receive, at a minimum, the same level of prevention education as their child/youth. Parents can be strong…
Reporting
All staff must be aware of the warning signs and symptoms of child abuse and neglect, know how to respond appropriately, and report suspected cases…
Screening & Hiring
When possible, it can be informative to observe an applicant in your environment with the child(ren) and youth you serve, to look for potential red…
Customized child sexual abuse prevention guidelines to meet the unique needs of any organization that serves children.
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