On May 1, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed a bill into law which will require national background checks for all employees that will be working with kids in Georgia child care facilities.

The bill came about in response to a case involving Macon, GA’s Progressive Christian Academy. The former owner of the academy, Betty Tolbert, alleged that the company she had turned to for assistance with the school’s financial problems defrauded her and took over ownership of the school. When Georgia officials investigated, they discovered that one of the new owners, Christina Hawkins, had a criminal record.

Hawkins’ criminal record was not detected at the time she took over Progessive Christian Academy for two reasons. First, her conviction was in Florida, and Progressive Christian Academy only ran a Georgia background check on her. Secondly, her conviction was under an alias, Christina Perera.

By using more robust background check tools, Progressive Christian Academy could have uncovered Hawkins’ criminal past beyond the state borders. For example, they could have used a tool like US OneSEARCH from backgroundcheck.com, which enables employers to comb through a national database consisting of over 450 million records and instantly uncover criminal records related to the individual in question.

To uncover the alias, Progressive Christian Academy could have used US AliasSearch from backgroundchecks.com. This tool uses a social security trace to uncover all known aliases, including maiden names. Then, all these aliases are run through the robust US OneSearch database. This tool could have revealed the fact that Christina Hawkins, aka Christian Perera, had convictions under other names while living in Florida.

As it turned out, Hawkins was actually on parole at the time she was hired by Progressive Christian Academy. She violated her parole by lying about her new employment to her probation offices, and there was actually a warrant out for her arrest in December of 2012.

This incident made Georgia legislators realize that child care centers in the state were not performing thorough enough background checks on all employees. While Hawkins’ convictions didn’t indicate any predilection for harming or abusing children, as a felon she is still not exactly a desirable role model for or a good influence on the children at the school.

The bill, which was signed into law today, will result in better protection for children by requiring national background checks, including fingerprinting, for all child care workers. This will do a better job to detect individuals with criminal backgrounds, even if their crimes were committed in a different state or under a different name.

Georgia is just the latest in a series of states that have been passing laws mandating more rigorous background checks for employees working with children. The trend seems to be sweeping the nation, and other states may soon adopt similar legislation.

About backgroundchecks.com

Founded during the Internet boom in 1999 by an executive in both the staffing and information industry, backgroundchecks.com – a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) – has been able to create a service that provides a blend of flexible screening programs that included instant, cost effective and comprehensive solutions. Our experience in database modeling of public records information has led Backgroundchecks.com to become the leader in the acquisition and delivery of public records information by harnessing the power and technology of the Internet. To learn more visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source: http://www.11alive.com/news/article/290895/40/National-background-checks-coming-for-child-care-workers

http://www.13wmaz.com/video/1902580704001/1/Lawsuit-Alleges-Fraud-at-Progressive-Christian-Academy

http://www.fugitive.com/2012/12/26/christina-hawkins-alias-christina-perera-wanted-by-florida-department-of-corrections-for-alleged-violation-of-probation/

Author: Michael Klazema

A non-profit Louisiana daycare facility may soon be losing its license due to allegations from the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services that it has failed to provide records of background checks for its employees, after allegedly ignoring the state’s multiple warnings to correct the issue. The Knowledge Garden has already received the revocation notice from the state, with a hearing still required to decide the daycare center’s fate. The daycare is operated by non-profit organization Operation REACH, which is currently experiencing financial difficulties.

The Knowledge Garden is among the last sources of major funding for the troubled organization, which had to close offices in Alabama and Georgia last year. In the past year, they lost support from Americorps, their main source of income, due to accusations of financial “irregularities” on the organization’s part. Operation REACH’s founder and CEO, Kyshun Webster, says that he ended the relationship with Americorps due to reimbursement payment issues. Webster is also no longer receiving a salary since the organization cannot afford to pay him. The daycare fell under scrutiny from the state early last year for failure to keep records of background checks in their files for their employees. They were cited twice and given a chance to correct their actions, but several months later the state discovered the daycare still could not show proof they checked their employee’s criminal histories, according to DCFS spokesman Trey Williams.

In the past three years, the Louisiana DCFS has taken away 155 daycare licenses, and 68 of those were for failing to perform criminal background checks on employees. According to Williams, there are about five main reasons his department will take away a license, which includes failure to provide proof of criminal checks. Williams said what they look for are “serious and repeated” offenses before finally seeking revocation of a license, “and in this situation it was serious and repeated.” Although Williams maintained that all cases are different, past history has indicated that in the majority of revocation requests, the judge has ruled in the department’s favor. This makes it even more likely that the Knowledge Garden will soon be losing their license.

When it comes to protecting children, making sure that those in charge of their care have had complete background checks is of the utmost importance. Don’t let your business be held liable for failing to keep children safe. By using a reputable company like backgroundchecks.com, you can be assured you are getting the best and most thorough background check screening techniques available.With access to countless criminal databases nationwide they have many options available, several with instant results. Their US OneSEARCH gives you instant information from more than 430million criminal records from counties, Department of Corrections (DOC), Administration of Courts (AOC) and State Sex Offender Registries covering 49 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam. Also included are national and international terrorism sources, more than 11 million photos, and their proprietary database of previously completed reports. Or try their Ongoing Criminal Monitoring tool, which allows you to automatically run a continuous background check against a name and date of birth. You will be notified via email of any new information that may appear on their record. They will run the name for one year and remind you when it is time to renew the monitoring, plus you can remove the name from being monitored at any time.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source: http://thelensnola.org/2012/08/06/operation-reach-daycare-revocation/

When a new daycare opens in any state, it must undergo inspections that will assure its safety and quality for the care of children.  All workers who work at that facility must also undergo training and background checks in order to prove their expertise and ability to work with children.  Unfortunately, in Illinois, of the 12,000 day care facilities currently in operation, more than 6,000 have not yet had their required inspections and are waiting for their background checks to be processed.  Illinois daycares are responsible for the care of approximately 300,000 children, but right now, it is unclear if they are maintaining health, safety, and curriculum standards or if they are employing lawful individuals. 

The Illinois Department of Child and Family Services plans to hire four new people to take care of their backlog of background checks alone.  They also hope to hire more inspectors, so they can catch up on the annual requirement.  Every daycare receives a three year license which includes both planned and unplanned inspections to make sure they are up to code.  It will likely take several months to hire and train new inspectors to take care of these procedures.  Some daycares worry that their grant money will be revoked because their licenses have expired.  They will have to wait for their turn on the long list of inspections in order to get those renewals though.  The DCFS says that in order to hire additional staff, they will have to cut funding from other family programs, though they didn’t comment as to which ones.

It’s unclear how the department got so far behind in the first place.  Either the rate of daycares opening has increased at unexpected rates or they simply allowed their work to pile up.  It might be a good idea for the department to outsource their background check processes in order to save money and time.  By partnering with experienced organizations like backgroundchecks.com, they can gain affordable and instant access to national criminal databases like US OneSEARCH and US Offender OneSEARCH.  Then, with the money they save on those types of searches, they can allocate more funds to the hiring of inspectors.  Otherwise, Illinois may be a magnet for sex offenders seeking employment in childcare organizations until the problem is resolved.  There has been no mention of whether or not the department is making changes, but the media attention they are getting has certainly put pressure on their program that should move them to quicker action.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) and co-founder of the Expungement Clearinghouse - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source:  http://www.rrstar.com/news/x787564478/Report-Illinois-fails-to-inspect-day-cares

A 2010 report by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies ranked Georgia at the bottom due to lack of licensing and screening standard and enforcement. One of the most deplorable facts reported about the daycare industry in Georgia, was the fact that the state did not carry out visits to small home based daycare centers before issuing them a license.

Recent changes enacted by Georgia state have vastly improved the level of expected quality, including higher standards when it comes to child care employees, like an associate’s degree, stricter inspection requirements and more stringent safety and health standards. Georgia added so many improvements its rank on the national ladder climbed to a spot in the top 10.

It might have been fared better had Georgia addressed the fact that employees in these types of day care centers in the state were not required to go through background checks. This means that the door is still wide open for those who have criminal records to care for Georgia’s children.

It should be noted that there was a bill introduced into the Georgia State House of Representatives that would required fingerprint based background checks, but failed in the House despite lobbying by Voices for Georgia’s Children. This advocacy group promised to continue to lobbying for that requirement .

As of now, there are some Georgia based day care companies that do voluntary background checks on their employees, but this is definitely not required by law. Until it is, those who are voluntarily doing the background checks are being responsible and truly caring for children. It is extremely easy to do background checks, especially when using third party background check companies like backgroundchecks.com. This company has several different products like their US Offender OneSEARCH which would check each applicant for matches against sex offender registries in every state in the nation.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2012/03/15/1972266/response-to-child-care-deficiencies.html

For more information about our authors, click here.

It has recently come to light that there seems to be a difference of practice when it comes to day care regulations in Indiana. After the death of a two year old at a religious day care center, light has been shed on the fact that day care centers associated with faith based organizations are not held to the same standards as other, secular non-affiliated day care centers.

The child in question drowned in a baptismal pool and while it has been ruled as accidental, during an earlier inspection it was found that there were several broken high chairs, expired food being served to the children and dirty changing tables.

Indiana recognizes three types of child care centers; licensed centers, licensed homes and unlicensed registered ministries. In the state of Indiana, regular centers must adhere to 192 regulations, day care center operated out of homes have 94 regulations to abide by, but unlicensed registered ministries have only 21 regulations to follow.

Melanie Brizzi, child-care administrator for the state's Bureau of Child Care says there are now more unlicensed faith-based day-care centers in Indiana -- 730 -- than licensed centers -- 601.

Faith-based day-care centers don't need to meet a host of regulations, state officials said. One of the most critical is a requirement that children be within "sight and sound" of an adult.  But background check requirements are not standardized across these license types either, and not surprisingly faith based centers have lower standards.

Of course this could be a huge risk for children who attend these day care centers. In addition to being subject to a potentially environment that has fewer safety regulations, there is no telling is the lack of standards become a draw for people that can’t get passed background checks in other places. For the safety of children parent advocacy groups in the state of Indiana are now lobbying to have the same stringent rules applied to day care centers in churches, just as the public day care centers are, including mandating that all employees go through background checks.

Companies like backgroundchecks.com can be a real asset to these daycare centers as they have products that are specifically tailored to ensuring the safety of children. One of these products is known as the US Offender OneSEARCH. This product will search sex offender registry information in all states and report back to organizations immediately if any of their employees have been registered. Having the policies in place and taking the time to do this will certainly lower the risk that anything would happen to children in any Indiana day care center.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Click here to find out more about our authors.

Source: http://www.indystar.com/article/20120224/LOCAL/202240319/Indiana-s-regulations-differ-day-cares?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com

A registered sex offender has been working at a Chicago area day care without the knowledge of parents, the community or other employees. Eric Ellis, the employee in question, was hired by the day care through a temp agency. Though Ellis worked in the kitchen and had no access to children, as soon as the management found out about the history of Ellis, they immediately removed him from the property.

Ellis states that both the day care center and the temp agency knew of this background as he informed them both. The day care, on the other hand, states that they only hire temps when regular employees are sick. They rely on the temporary agency to do the background checks on these employees. The day care does not do the background checks on temporary employees themselves, though they do background checks on permanent employees.

Parents had mixed thoughts about Ellis being inadvertently hired by the day care center. Some were understandably upset and are considering removing their children. Others, though happy that Ellis was quickly found, believe it was an honest mistake and do not hold the day care responsible. Both sides believe that the day care needs to re-evaluate the way they get employees, even those through background checks. Though the day care relies on the temporary agency to perform the background checks, they may consider taking a closer look at the results.

It is true that the temporary agency does background checks, but the day care did not take on the responsibility to actually look at the results of the background checks in question. It may be difficult to place blame in this situation as some would say the temporary agency is at fault for not informing the day care center of Ellis’ background and others would say the day care is to blame as they did not take the responsibility to check the background of Ellis themselves. Both agencies should likely re-evaluate their practice in this situation.

There are many third party companies like backgroundchecks.com who perform background checks instantly and have products like a US Offender OneSEARCH that can search through records in seconds. It contains records from all 50 states and US territories like Puerto Rico, Washington DC and Guam. If the day care in question had considered an option such as this, it is very possible that this entire situation could have been avoided.

About backgroundchecks.com

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office charged Keith Woodhouse on 30 counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a minor in February of this year. In November, the families of two of the young girls filed a lawsuit against Woodhouse’s former employer, Child Development Inc, who they claim did not perform an adequate background check on Woodhouse.

Prosecutors later found that Woodhouse had been fired from a previous job in 2007 for similar accusations, however the incident had not been reported to the police and no investigation had been done into the situation. Additionally, Woodhouse has been suspected of similar acts at jobs as a camp counselor, Sunday school teacher and day care worker. All of the information given to police indicates that these incidents were recorded by the companies in question, Woodhouse was reprimanded on site and the police were not brought into the mix.

The families of the latest alleged victims are suing the company Child Development Inc for failing to perform a background check on Woodhouse. According to witnesses of the incidents as well as former employees of Child Development Inc, little to no background check was ever done on Woodhouse at any time during his employment.

When companies like Child Development Inc do not perform an employment history background check, not only does it put the company in danger, more importantly it puts children in danger of being victimized by people like Woodhouse. In this case, a criminal background check would not likely have shown any indication that Woodhouse had this history, however, a few calls to past employers Woodhouse had listed on his resume as part of a comprehensive background check would have given Child Development Inc the opportunity to possibly avoid this situation.

A story like this shows again that it remains extremely important to check the full backgrounds of any person that is considered for as position. You certainly can’t tell what a person is like from simply talking to them in a short interview, so take the initiative and hire a company to do your background checks. Moreover, companies like backgroundchecks.com can not only get the information that you need for an initial decision, they also offer specific products like Ongoing Criminal Monitoring to continue the  protective aspects of employment screening for your business past the initial hiring stage.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source - http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_19621625?source=most_viewed