Summer is here, time for fun! But if you employ personnel for children’s summer day or overnight camps, swim clubs, play centers, arcades, or other places kids frequent, you must do thorough background checks on those employees (and volunteers).

Personnel like lifeguards, camp counselors, nurses, drivers, and others are responsible for children while they’re away from family. It’s YOUR responsibility to ensure your employees/volunteers have no sex offenses, drug/alcohol abuse, or other crimes on their records.

In addition to child protection, background checks can protect you and your business from lawsuits and harm to your reputation.

Camps or daycare centers run by city or county agencies or by schools receiving state funding are usually required to have licenses issued by their state or local government. Their employees/volunteers are generally required to pass background checks.

But surprisingly, private summer or day camps, like those run by churches or privately owned businesses, are not always required to have a license or to conduct background checks, depending on laws in the camp’s state.

In Massachusetts, “no person can be employed or volunteer at a camp until the operator has obtained, reviewed and made a determination concerning all background information required at 105 CMR 430.090 (C) and (D).” (Source: State of Massachusetts Policy Statement.)

Any employee/volunteer working in a Massachusetts recreational camp for children is required to have the following included in a background check:

• Prior work history for previous five (5) years including, name, address and phone number of a contact person at each place of employment

• Three (3) positive reference checks from individuals not related to the staff person.

• A CORI/Juvenile Report from the Massachusetts Department of Criminal Justice Information Services (DCJIS)

• A SORI (Sex offender registry information) check from the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board (SORB)

Additionally, staff whose permanent residence is outside MA require a criminal record check from that person’s state of residence; international staff require a criminal record check from their country of residence and, if they have previously been in the U.S., a SORI.

In Massachusetts, licenses are also required to operate day camps or resident camps. BUT, camps operated by a municipal recreation department are exempt from this licensing requirement (although criminal background checks are required for staff and volunteers).

Owners of summer camps should conduct background checks on job applicants, even if the laws in their area do not require it. If an employee/volunteer commits a crime or harms a child, the camp could be held legally responsible if it failed to conduct a background check that would have raised red flags.

Duke University operated a camp every July for nearly forty years for children with chronic illnesses—Camp Kaleidoscope. But the beloved camp was shut down facing lawsuits alleging young children were left alone by camp counselors resulting in sex abuse by other children. Hiring these inept, untrained employees resulted in a huge lawsuit and the closing of a camp that had done good for decades.

In Atlanta, the family of a young boy who drowned at a summer camp at Cochran Mill Nature Center filed a wrongful death lawsuit. The 5-year-old was missing for 45 minutes before anyone realized he was gone. When police arrived and searched for him, they found him drowned in a pond.

The family says the camp had been operating without a license for more than twenty years.

 

A Grand Jury indicted both the president of the board of directors of Camp Cricket and a camp director. The board president was charged with one misdemeanor of reckless conduct for failing to operate an early care and education program without a license issued by the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning. The camp director was charged with reckless conduct and involuntary manslaughter.

Amy Rock, in a Campus Safety Magazine article, “Lack of Requirements, Background Checks for School Bus Drivers Endangers Student Safety,” cites a CBS investigative report that points to “lack of oversight” of criminal charges of school bus drivers, including DUIs and child porn possession.

CBS reported 21 states claimed no school bus drivers had been charged with DUI in the last three years, but the network discovered at least one DUI arrest in each of the 21 states. The investigation found that at least once a week on average a school bus driver is arrested for DUI, child porn, or sexually assaulting a student.

Renaldo Vega, a former school bus driver for the East Irondequoit School District in New York, was charged in 2014 with three counts of forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child. He’d previously been arrested in 2013 on suspicion of child abuse.

Durham School Services, one of the largest school bus companies in the U.S., hired Kelly Shane Hooper from Craigslist in 2015 as a school bus driver for Topeka Unified School District 501. He was facing child pornography charges in Texas and was a fugitive at the time of his hire. Hooper was found guilty in 2016 on five counts of possession of child pornography.

A professional background check could have prevented these awful scenarios—including not just criminal and driving records, but proof of job experience and validation of employer references. Not to mention state licensing.

Be safe, not sorry. At The Hire Authority we are thorough in our screening, which guarantees that you will receive information that is current and relevant. We care about your security and we will work to keep you safe from harm or unnecessary problems.

We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have and give you a quote. Call (508) 230-5901 or visit our website www.hireauth.com.