By JANICE BUANNO
BOYLES
For The
Leader-Herald
New York state is
getting tougher on hiring practices in the child care
industry and has
set some high standards for workers in the field.
Late in 1999, the
Quality Childcare and Protection Act mandated that
criminal background
checks be done on all operators, employees,
assistants and
volunteers of child day-care centers, school age,
child-care
providers, family day-care homes and group, family day-care
homes regulated by
the state.
To further
safeguard children, the bill also requires that people 16
years and older
living on the premises of a family day-care home or
group family
day-care home must also undergo a criminal background
check.
Those found to have
convictions for certain serious crimes are
automatically
disqualified from operating or working in day care
settings.
Furthermore, the bill allows providers to deny an application
in cases where
other criminal offenses or convictions are identified.
But that’s not all.
As part of the
provider’s initial application for any child day care
license or
registration, the operator or provider needs to furnish the
state Office of
Child and Family Services with fingerprint cards of all
employees and
volunteers.
While New York
state is paying for the cost for processing fingerprints
for group and
family day care providers, operators of day care centers
and school-age,
child care programs are responsible for the fee for
processing
fingerprints of existing and prospective employees and
volunteers and are
allowed the option to pass the cost on to applicants.
Melinda Malagisi of
Cherished Memories Daycare of Gloversville says her
employees have been
fingerprinted.
“Our employees take
the fingerprinting cards to the Police Department,
where they get the
procedure done,” she said. “Then the state runs the
background check on
them. We don’t need to set up an appointment with
the police. You
just walk in.”
Gloversville Police
Capt. Robert Gugenberger said that at one time, 15
employees of the
YMCA in Gloversville showed up together.
“We just scheduled
another time, and we went to them to do the
fingerprinting,” he
said.
While stiffer
regulations require background checks and fingerprinting
for those caring
for children in a state-registered environment, many
other businesses
are on their own to formulate their company’s policies
and procedures in
the matter.
“We now require
background checks on all of our employees, other than
the normal written
reference checks,” Lexington Center Director Paul
Nigra said.
Nigra says
Lexington employees are put through the state’s central
registry check like
day care providers, while those who work more
directly with
clients in their homes are fingerprinted.
John Nasso, the
executive director of Catholic Charities in Johnstown,
said, “We know
there’s a potential problem out there when it comes to
safety in the
workplace.
“Because of the low
unemployment rates, many companies hire the first
warm body they can
find just to fill a position out of necessity,” he
said. “I’ve been
communicating with the district attorney’s office about
what can be done to
screen prospective employees in the area.”
Room to Grow
Daycare on South Main Street in Gloversville is an agency
of Catholic
Charities, which is also responsible for two mental health
programs and
several counseling programs in Fulton County.
“We’ve been
researching different employee screening companies on the
Internet, but
haven’t chosen a way yet to do extensive background
checks,” Nasso
said.
According to Jason
Morris, president of Beachwood Background Information
Services in Ohio,
the potential for violence can exist in any workplace.
“Many individuals
in management positions believe disagreeable workers
are to blame for
workplace violence, and as a result are advised to
assess workers and
job candidates for their alleged propensity towards
violence,” Morris said.
“One common practice used to identify an
employees violent
tendencies is psychological testing. Although these
tests attempt to
reveal which workers may act violently and may be good
indicators for some
employers, it’s still not enough.”
Like a convicted
child abuser who secretly operates a day care center
only to commit acts
of the unthinkable again and again, Morris says
workplace violence
not only affects co-workers but also customers.
In his report,
“Violence in the Workplace — A Growing Problem in
America,” Morris
cites various incidences of violence in
the everyday
workplace:
“A furniture store hired a deliveryman who
looked good on paper and fit
the qualifications
perfectly. After working for a few months, the man
raped a customer in
her home when he came to deliver her order. Had the
company conducted a
background check, they would have found two prior
incidents of sexual
misconduct.
“And a McDonald’s
restaurant in Ohio hired an employee who later
assaulted a
3-year-old child in the workplace. And there’s the pizza
restaurant that
hired a convicted child molester who later was accused
of raping two
teen-age employers. There’s so much evidence of an
over-stressed
population, of the employee who is downsized, laid off or
unable to handle
the company’s growth in technology.
There’s lack of
workplace support, understaffing, lack of training,
recession, massive
mergers and unemployment that drive workers to the
brink. There’s
television, movies and music that depict violence as an
accepted means of
problem solving, not to mention the accessibility of
handguns,” the
report states.
In his report,
Morris suggests setting up company-wide policies and
procedures as a way
to curb the violence.
“When a company has
these set in place, following them will become
second-nature. And
conducting a thorough background check through an
accredited
pre-employment screening agency is very important,” the
report said.
“Companies are able to find out the history of violence and
incarceration, history
of drug use, abuse, negligence and other
derogatory
information on an applicant. By taking it a step further and
verifying past
employment, companies may also find a lapse in their
employment history
including violence at another workplace.”
Morris said this
type of screening should also include a credit check,
DMV check and a
public records search. He further advises that a company
should develop a
committee to deal with this procedure and
violence-in-the-workplace
issues.
Morris said that
about 30 percent of businesses now do pre-employment
screening that can
cost anywhere from $35 to $275. This includes a
Social Security
number verification, a driver’s license search,
employment and
education verification, local and federal criminal record
searches and a
consumer credit check.
Ken Derr, the
manager of special operations for AMRIC Associates in
Syracuse, agrees that employees need to have a safe
working environment
and that before an
employee is hired, companies have to notify all
applicants and perspective
employees that a complete background
investigation will
be conducted. Derr says that the type of employee
background check a
company does depends on the type of position being
filled.
Derr says the cost
of taking on an AMRIC’s employee screening service
can run anywhere
from $75 for a basic background check to a more
extensive search
costing $200 to $400.
“The charges depend
on several factors,” he said. “If we’re researching
a person who has
moved a lot or lived in various areas of the country,
our search could
take upward of two to three weeks and cost more than
the basic three-day
search done for a local person.”
AMRIC has two
representatives in Fulton County.
Derr says AMRIC
Associates are experienced in financial fraud,
white-collar crime,
environmental violations, government procurement
fraud, personal
protection, internal and external thefts, accident
investigations,
insurance frauds, product liability, vulnerability
assessments,
computer security, background investigations, trademark
violations, tax
fraud and workers’ compensation.
While it is
possible to search the Internet for employment screening
specialists, Derr
said that online databases are unreliable.
“They can be
outdated and incomplete, and New York state does not have a
statewide criminal
background search database,” Derr said. “We
physically travel
to court houses and state houses and do hands-on
investigations.”
Morris agrees.
“Companies that
have field workers, as opposed to simply checking
databases, are
going to provide better information,” he said. “Any
bigger companies
that have been doing pre-employment screening, if they
use an online
service, they’re not going to be doing it for very long. I
used to be a
private investigator, and having the ability to run online
searches is great, but it’s scary.”
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