Your church families have high expectations when it comes to background checks for your ministries’ volunteers. Are you meeting their expectations? According to a new study… maybe not. But you should. And best of all – you can! Let’s take a look at how your church can close the background check expectation gap. First, the
Inside the Mind of a Sexual Predator
“We let him into our lives, our home. We trusted him with our children, and he betrayed us in the worst way possible,” the mother told the judge. “It is inconceivable to think that this man was able to maintain the lie of who he was for eight years in our community.’’ Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/05/sex_offender_left_oregon_and_d.html Those
When Should Your Church Re-Screen Employees and Volunteers?
Recently, a church found itself at the center of every congregation’s worst nightmare; One of its former volunteers is accused of sexually abusing several children he met through the church. The worst part is that these newest charges come years after similar allegations plagued the man and the church. Once a clean record, not always a clean a
How to Spot a Predator – One Church’s Story
“Background checks are required but statistics say that background checks only catch ten percent of predators. We knew our goal had to be to get the entire staff savvy on how to spot predators.” – Executive Pastor Donald Pope of First Baptist Church of Canton, Ga. In a bold move by a Georgia church, executive
Background Check Requirements for Volunteer Chaplains
Chaplains do important work. These faith-oriented individuals often work with hospitals, police departments, schools, prisons and other secular (non-religious) groups and provide a peaceful, nonjudgmental ear for employees to share their feelings with. They help in a variety of ways that often go beyond the scope of what an employer can provide to an employee:
How to Define Your Social Media Screening Policy
“Legal experts have one main thing to say to employers considering using social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram as an initial job-candidate screening tool: Don’t do it. According to a recent survey from Careerbuilder, more employers are turning to social networking sites to find information on potential candidates. And, CareerBuilder reports, 51 percent
Three Key Elements to a Screening Policy
If you don’t already have an employee/volunteer screening policy, you need one. It’s non-negotiable. A thorough screening policy will not only help protect your religious organization and the people within it from psychopaths, it will safeguard your church against any legal action that might be taken should a predator/thief/fraudster/etc. slip through your ranks. But not
The Fair Credit Reporting Act and You: Protecting Your Credit Information
We’re going back to basics on Protect My Ministry this week. Our goal today is explaining some of the basic laws of background checks and what employees need to know about how ministries and their chosen screening agencies should be protecting their credit information. Who We Are By law, a company is a Consumer Reporting
Child Safety Training More Important Than Ever Thanks to New Laws
It’s always a step in the right direction when states move to protect our innocent children from abusive predators. Even though the details might be overwhelming or confusing at the start, it’s imperative that organizations, including all faith-based groups, implement them as soon as possible. Pennsylvania took such action in 2014 when its state legislature
Three Reasons Why Every Church School Should Screen its Staff and Volunteers
Protect My Ministry takes seriously the need to vet anyone – ANYONE – who is hired by, or volunteers for, a faith-based organization. In particular, we feel strongly that employees and volunteers within schools who are sponsored by, or run on the campus of, a religious organization must maintain high standards of conducting thorough and