Screen Employees and Volunteers

Best Practice 3: Screen Employees and Volunteers focuses on screening practices recommended for youth-serving organizations. This Best Practice is rooted in the Talmudic maxim describing a wise person as one who foresees the future consequences of their actions; the work is designed to help you develop a level of proactive vision as a central component to welcoming new adults into your organization’s team. Although your organization may already have a screening process, this step will help you incorporate questions about child safety into the written application, interviews, reference checks, observations, and background checks. Through video simulations, worksheets, guides, and more, you will be introduced to these five steps of the hiring and screening process as a way to assess candidates and identify red flags. You’ll learn helpful follow-up questions and next steps.

In addition, since youth-serving organizations tend to engage children and teens in a variety of settings, whether inside a building, on field trips, in the homes of community members, or elsewhere, this Best Practice expands to include volunteers, additional employees with access to children, hosts, contractors, and individuals in roles specific to your organization.