Home > How to Start an MRC > Technical Assistance Series > Developing Volunteer Relationships and Capabilities >

Developing: Performing Criminal Background Checks

To screen applicants, some MRC units—and other volunteer-driven organizations—perform background checks on prospective volunteers to assess whether they have a criminal history or a history of being sued for malpractice or negligence. Each community will need to decide which prior infractions are serious enough to disqualify an applicant. Making these distinctions and weighing all the factors is not always easy. Each community will need to decide how to protect the group’s welfare and individual’s rights.

It is important to develop guidelines for making such judgments, and for particularly troubling cases, to seek outside consultation from someone with legal or human resources expertise.

Ask your local police department or other partnering organizations if they can offer you thorough, low-cost background checks. In addition, if background checks are part of the volunteer screening process, it is necessary to determine how often such checks will be conducted, even for currently active volunteers. It also will be necessary to decide how frequently physical exams will need to be updated, if this also is part of your screening criteria.

Regarding criminal background checks, it is essential to remember the following:

1. A “clean” background check is not a guarantee that the volunteer does not have a criminal history (this can depend on the type of check, the length of time since any charges were filed, and the system the locality uses to report charges to the criminal databases). It also does not mean that a volunteer is a perfect fit for your organization—the information from a background check is only a part of the information you need to make this decision.
    
2. The unit must have a written policy for how criminal background information is collected and treated. Some of this information is sensitive, and volunteers must trust that you treat it accordingly. If something shows in a criminal background check, it is important to give the volunteer the opportunity to dispute or challenge the information—the criminal record databases are not foolproof—inaccurate information sometimes is reported.
    
3. The decisions made based on the criminal background check information must be made consistently and according to a written policy. For instance: “Drug-related convictions (whether felony or misdemeanor) in the past 10 years are grounds for declining a volunteer’s application.”

Previous | Table of Contents | Next

Last Updated on 8/21/2006