News
Are your children safe
Thousands of kids in the state of Arizona will be participating in summer camps or other outside activities this summer. According to www.campsatoz.com, there are over 500 Arizona day and overnight summer camps in Scottsdale, the East Valley, the West Valley, Phoenix, Northern Arizona and Tucson. Most families blindly believe that the staff employees at these camps have had extensive background checks. As a parent there are certain questions you should be asking yourself.
What are the background and training levels of the director and all of the staff members? What about the people not just watching your children, but also the cook, the janitor, the lifeguards and the driver? How can you obtain references? Have background checks for criminal records or sex offenses been done on them, and what were the results? Can you see the certificates, references and background checks?
In 2003, the US Congress passed the "PROTECT Act" which is a multifaceted law that focuses on the prevention of the exploitation of children. Included in the Act was a pilot program to test out a number of different mechanisms to allow organizations that serve children to have access to timely, inexpensive FBI criminal background checks. Luckily CrimShield, a local Arizona based company is trying to get the word out about the differences in background check services as well as offer affordable solutions to the facilities that will be working with your children this year.
CrimShield points out that due to the nature of how most automatic background checks are conducted, some systems may be missing the last two years of vital information. This means staff employees could very well be registered sex offenders, violent criminals, or worse and still have passed a background check.
Furnishing the public with information regarding convicted sex offenders or criminals is a critical step towards encouraging parents this summer to protect loved ones from potential future acts. CrimShield empowers parents to obtain information and take the appropriate precautions.