Planning a successful Vacation Bible School (VBS) can take months. From choosing brainstorming activities to recruiting volunteers, you have your hands full. And that’s just scratching the surface.
VBS is the opportunity for your church to create a fun, engaging, and healthy experience for the kids in your ministry and positively impact families in your community. To successfully do so, it’s important to create a safe environment — background screening is one of the best ways to do just that! With help from our friends at Verified First, we’re sharing five tips for background screening success in your church.
Background Screening for VBS
In addition to protecting your children, you want to protect your church mission, too. Your staff serves a vulnerable population that needs to feel safe and supported within your ministry. You can protect these kids and better ensure your volunteers are a safe fit for your VBS program through quality background checks.
These checks look into a volunteer’s background to shed light on their history and who they are as a person, both inside and outside the church. When you opt to run background screens on your VBS volunteers, here’s what you can learn:
- Identity – Prove that a volunteer is who they claim to be.
- Character – Understand their past to help determine if they’re presently fit to help.
- Prior convictions – Major or minor, screening a volunteer will uncover past convictions.
Knowing this information will help determine if your VBS volunteers can and will uphold your mission, serve your ministry, and care for your youth congregation.
5 Best Practices for Background Screening in Churches
It’s important to note that even when you know the person volunteering (i.e. they’ve been a member of your church for years), you don’t always know their history. Prioritizing safety for the children attending and your staff serving at VBS is always a best practice. Here are the five best practices for background screening your volunteers for VBS:
Be Consistent With Your Screens
Be consistent about who you screen and what screens you run. We recommend you screen everyone, so your staff and volunteers of every level should have a completed background check. This goes for running the same types of checks on everyone, too.
Find The Right Screening Provider
Selecting a screening partner that integrates well with your current church software will streamline your background check process from year to year. With so many possible partnership options, it’s important you choose the right provider that aligns with your company goals, effectively integrates with your technology, and prioritizes your unique business needs.
Rescreen
It’s recommended to rescreen your volunteers every year. VBS and summer church camps are a perfect time to rescreen existing volunteers and staff.
Create a Background Screening Policy
A background screening policy will help streamline your volunteer process, provide transparency to your candidates, and deter ill-intent volunteers. This should clearly explain the process to your volunteers so they know what they can expect from a background check.
Promote Sharing and Transparency
You want your volunteers to be honest and transparent, so you should be as well. Ensure all parties receive a disclosure and authorization form. If you have questions about background check results, you can encourage your VBS volunteers to share and speak to their history regarding the background check. This can help you make the most informed decision and create a sharing culture within your church.
Kickstarting Your Church’s Background Screening Process
Many church leaders don’t know where to begin with background screening. The number of screening options on the market can feel overwhelming, which is why we recommend partnering with a background screening provider.
Planning a successful Vacation Bible School (VBS) can take months. From choosing brainstorming activities to recruiting volunteers, you have your hands full. And that’s just scratching the surface.
VBS is the opportunity for your church to create a fun, engaging, and healthy experience for the kids in your ministry and positively impact families in your community. To successfully do so, it’s important to create a safe environment — background screening is one of the best ways to do just that! With help from our friends at Verified First, we’re sharing five tips for background screening success in your church.
Background Screening for VBS
In addition to protecting your children, you want to protect your church mission, too. Your staff serves a vulnerable population that needs to feel safe and supported within your ministry. You can protect these kids and better ensure your volunteers are a safe fit for your VBS program through quality background checks.
These checks look into a volunteer’s background to shed light on their history and who they are as a person, both inside and outside the church. When you opt to run background screens on your VBS volunteers, here’s what you can learn:
- Identity – Prove that a volunteer is who they claim to be.
- Character – Understand their past to help determine if they’re presently fit to help.
- Prior convictions – Major or minor, screening a volunteer will uncover past convictions.
Knowing this information will help determine if your VBS volunteers can and will uphold your mission, serve your ministry, and care for your youth congregation.
5 Best Practices for Background Screening in Churches
It’s important to note that even when you know the person volunteering (i.e. they’ve been a member of your church for years), you don’t always know their history. Prioritizing safety for the children attending and your staff serving at VBS is always a best practice. Here are the five best practices for background screening your volunteers for VBS:
Be Consistent With Your Screens
Be consistent about who you screen and what screens you run. We recommend you screen everyone, so your staff and volunteers of every level should have a completed background check. This goes for running the same types of checks on everyone, too.
Find The Right Screening Provider
Selecting a screening partner that integrates well with your current church software will streamline your background check process from year to year. With so many possible partnership options, it’s important you choose the right provider that aligns with your company goals, effectively integrates with your technology, and prioritizes your unique business needs.
Rescreen
It’s recommended to rescreen your volunteers every year. VBS and summer church camps are a perfect time to rescreen existing volunteers and staff.
Create a Background Screening Policy
A background screening policy will help streamline your volunteer process, provide transparency to your candidates, and deter ill-intent volunteers. This should clearly explain the process to your volunteers so they know what they can expect from a background check.
Promote Sharing and Transparency
You want your volunteers to be honest and transparent, so you should be as well. Ensure all parties receive a disclosure and authorization form. If you have questions about background check results, you can encourage your VBS volunteers to share and speak to their history regarding the background check. This can help you make the most informed decision and create a sharing culture within your church.
Kickstarting Your Church’s Background Screening Process
Many church leaders don’t know where to begin with background screening. The number of screening options on the market can feel overwhelming, which is why we recommend partnering with a background screening provider.
BACKGROUND SCREENING CHECKLIST
To help you prepare for screening volunteers in your church, we’ve put together this guide as a background screening checklist to use within your ministry. Learn how to properly screen your volunteers
- The importance and legal obligations you should consider when screening volunteers
- Ways to communicate with your volunteers about screening
- Why an integrated screening processor is essential
- And more!
Verified First is the leading comprehensive background screening processor partnered with ACS Technologies. Together, we lead the market in knowing how best to help churches manage, grow, and protect their church with easy-to-use, integrated solutions. Verified First has received accreditation and is a National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) member. This accreditation means Verified First has dedicated itself to providing the highest level of standards. These standards include information security, legal and compliance, client education, researcher and data standards, verification services, and business practices.
