Required Training for all Junior Gathering and High School Staff
This training should take approximately 20 minutes and includes a quiz to demonstrate your understanding of the FGC Child Safety Policy and Procedures. Your quiz scores will be visible to you and will be reported to the Gathering office. If you do not obtain 80% correct on your quiz, the FGC Gathering Youth Coordinator will follow up about setting up a training for you.
The FGC Child Safety Policy and this training have not been reviewed by legal counsel. They were developed for FGC use, and are not intended as a model or template for other organizations.
FGC Policies
Background Checks
Friends General Conference is committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which every person is safe and free from fear. To do our best to ensure such safety, FGC must conduct a background investigation with particular attention to possible child abuse and/or criminal convictions of all people who work with minors in a supervisory position, who may take minors off the program site, or provide care overnight.
If you think there is a potential that this Background Check could put you at risk*, please contact the Gathering or Young Adult and Youth Ministries Coordinator to discuss your situation at jg@fgcquaker.org.
*immigration status, financial situation, etc.
Background Check FAQs
Topics
Friends General Conference is committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which every person is safe and free from fear. To do our best to ensure such safety, FGC conducts a background check with particular attention to possible child abuse and/or violent criminal convictions on all people who work with minors in a supervisory position, who may take minors off the program site, or provide care overnight. Legal, insurance, and other circumstances may require FGC to obtain additional clearances. Volunteers will be clearly informed when this is the case.
FGC requires a background check for all youth and childcare workers in supervisory positions, including all Junior Gathering Group Coordinators and High School Counselors.
The state of Pennsylvania has additional legal requirements that apply to anyone who has care of children. For the 2024 Gathering, support staff and workshop leaders with youth participants may also need to submit clearances. Contact Gathering@FGCQuaker.org if you are unclear about whether you will need a background check.
All applicants for Supervisory positions will have social security verification and a criminal history check with particular attention to possible child abuse. Motor vehicle records (“driving records”) may also be checked, but will not impact applicants’ eligibility to work with children, only to volunteer as drivers.
All background checks will be held in the strictest of confidence by FGC. Files will be maintained for up to 20 years (until the youngest child reaches majority plus 2 years) in a secure file. Access to these files will be limited to paid FGC conference staff, their supervisors, the FGC General Secretary, the FGC presiding clerk, and the clerk of Long Range Conference Planning. Each spring when workload is high, a volunteer file clerk may access these files always in the presence of one of these Friends. These files are the property of FGC.
Upon written request to the Conference Director, workers shall have access to their files except for letters of reference, which are confidential and not available to the worker. The file is not available to others outside of FGC.
When contractually required, FGC will share the reports with selected staff of the Host Institution (that is, the site of the pertinent FGC event/s).
FGC will obtain from the Host Institution its policy regarding protecting the confidentiality of such reports. This policy will be available from FGC upon request.
No.
Third party consumer reporting agency: At this time we are using First Advantage Background Services Corporation, in Atlanta Georgia. Their Privacy Policy can be reviewed at http://www.fadv.com/privacy-policy .
Investigative consumer reports: these may contain information regarding your criminal history, social security verification, motor vehicle records (“driving records”), or other background checks.
Supervisory position: any Youth and Childcare Worker who is supervising other Workers, or who has overnight responsibilities with Youth, or who might be alone with Youth