National Child Abuse Prevention Month
On March 20, 2012, WSAV News 3, the NBC affiliate in Savannah, Georgia broke a disturbing story. A lawsuit had been filed against the Diocese of Savannah and the St. James Early Learning Center. The learning center, a preschool belonging to St. James Parish, had hired a woman to be a teacher’s aide. This woman started work at the preschool and after she allegedly inappropriately touched a 3-year-old child, it was discovered that she not only did not have the proper background check but she had a criminal record which would have disqualified her from employment around children.
This story was sent to all principals of elementary and secondary schools in the Diocese of Camden and to all parish Safe Environment Coordinators. Within a day of the story being sent out, I received a telephone call from a principal. “How could this have happened?” she asked and, “Could it happen here?”
Speaking from experience I told her three ways something like this could have happened in our diocese. The first is negligence on the part of the principal. A busy and unorganized principal would inform an applicant of the legal and diocesan requirement to be fingerprinted and then never follow up on the matter. Hired in September, an applicant would inform the principal that he or she would be fingerprinted and it could be months before it occurs to the principal that a clearance letter from the New Jersey Department of Education (NJ DOE) never arrived.
A second way this could happen here is attributed to a two-step process in New Jersey for school personnel. An applicant pays one on-line fee to the agency (MorphoTrak) that does the actual fingerprinting. But prior to that, the applicant should be informed by the principal that there is another on-line administrative fee payable to the NJ DOE. This additional fee is a consent to be fingerprinted and without paying this fee, a clearance letter will not be mailed to the applicant.
A third way is understanding that a background check is not a background check is not a background check. There are various background checks, each of which has a different cost and different disqualifiers. An applicant can present a background check from another agency to a principal and the principal could wrongly presume it was acceptable.
Frustrating is that state law does not allow for agencies to share background check information. What does that mean? As a clinical social worker, I must be fingerprinted and cleared by the Board of Social Work Examiners. As a catechist in my parish, I must be separately fingerprinted and cleared by the diocese. If I then wanted to teach in one of our schools, I would have to be separately fingerprinted and cleared by the NJ DOE. If I wanted to then adopt a child, I would have to be separately fingerprinted and cleared by DYFS. If I wanted to adopt a second child, I would have to be re-fingerprinted. If I wanted to purchase a gun I would have to be separately fingerprinted and cleared by I-don’t-know-whom (I really have no interest or desire to buy a weapon). All the above agencies are legally not allowed to share information with each other, causing some individuals to go through multiple fingerprinting.
I don’t know what went wrong at St. James Early Learning Center in the Diocese of Savannah. Somehow an individual with a criminal record was allowed to work in the preschool, causing alleged harm to a child entrusted into the care of that facility.
This should not happen here in the Diocese of Camden. Proper and correct background checks through the NJ DOE for all school personnel are a legal and diocesan requirement. Working collaboratively with the Office of Catholic Schools, this office directs and guides our principals to sort through any bureaucratic entanglements or confusion to ensure that we have the proper clearance for all staff. The safety of the children in our schools can never be compromised.
Rod J. Herrera, LCSW, is director, Office of Child and Youth Protection, Diocese of Camden
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