Churches Move to Protect The Youths in Their Care

Training and Background Checks for Volunteers Become Requirements to Prevent Abuse

Everybody is in favor of protecting youths from sexual predators, including religious organizations that in recent years have intensified requirements for criminal background checks for clergy, youth leaders and summer camp counselors.

But many people are unaware that the same rules increasingly are being applied to parents and other volunteers who work with children and teenagers in churches, synagogues and mosques. That includes volunteers in church-run schools and chaperones for skiing or camping trips and other extended outings.

"All paid and non-paid staff and volunteers that work with children at Metropolitan are required to complete the Children Abuse Prevention and Intervention training and to have a criminal background check," said a May 19 memo to parents at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Northwest Washington who had volunteered to accompany the youth choir to Walt Disney World but had not completed the training and clearance process.

"Given the time constraints, we are not requiring you to complete the training but we are requiring . . . a criminal background check," wrote the Rev. Sherrill McMillan, minister of counseling and family services. "This is not a credit check."

Only after being assured that none of the potential chaperones had been arrested or convicted of any sex crime did the church allow them to go on last month's trip.

If you're a church volunteerwho has not been asked to submit to a criminal background check, it probably won't be long before you will be required to do so, said the Rev. David C. Parachini, an Episcopal priest and convener of the Nathan Network. The two-year-old organization, based in Windsor, Conn., was founded to prevent child abuse in the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church.

Parachini said criminal background checks are increasingly common in the religious community, "which quite honestly has not paid enough attention" to the issue compared to secular groups such as the Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts.

"Absent that kind of screening procedure, you're hanging out a sign notifying pedophiles and ephebophiles, 'Here's open season on your victim group,' " Parachini said, referring to adults who lust after pre- or post-pubescent youth. In the past, people assumed "if it's church, everybody's motives are honorable and there's no need to worry. In an ideal world, that would be true. But it's not an ideal world."

Procedures vary from public records searches to police and FBI checks. Congregations with large staffs often conduct their own Internet searches of arrests, using forms filled out by applicants, while others hire agencies that do background checks, Parachini said.

Fingerprinting, also increasingly common, offers another level of search that guards against applicants using aliases. Typically, applicants go to their local police station to be fingerprinted, and many police departments will run the checks for little or no charge, Parachini said.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has required fingerprinting of volunteers since 1999, according to spokeswoman Susan Gibbs. To ensure compliance, the archdiocese recently purchased an electronic fingerprinting machine and requires each volunteer to come to a central location to receive a "live scan" that is forwarded to law enforcement agencies.

"Most people have participated in this process readily, which really doesn't take that much time considering children's safety is at sake," Gibbs said. A few parents have complained, but "the fact that our background checks have prevented five sex offenders from volunteering or working with children in our care shows the importance of doing all this."

The Rev. Richard McFail, stated clerk of the National Capital Presbytery, said the regional office of the 2.5 million-member Presbyterian Church (USA) requires criminal background checks for clergy but does not have the authority to do so for staff members and volunteers -- that is up to individual congregations to decide. About one-fourth of the 112 churches have adopted child protection policies, some of which include criminal background checks for staff and volunteers.

In most cases, anyone who works with children must have "been involved and known in the congregation" at least six months and complete a training course before assuming such a role, McFail said. Two adults are required in every classroom -- or one adult with an open or glass door.