Pennsylvania Background Checks
Law Changes for 2015/16
Club Advisory
Pennsylvania adopted several important changes to its laws regarding people working with and around Children for 2015. This advisory is meant to highlight and summarize the changes for Rugby Pennsylvania’s member clubs and to offer some best practices and resources to use in complying with the law.
Rugby Pennsylvania is committed to acting as a resource for questions or comments from our members. If you have questions about the law or compliance, please feel free to email compliance@rugbypa.org.
A Background Clearance is required for any person (14 years of age or older, paid employee or volunteer) who is:
Responsible for the supervision, guidance, or control of a child;
Has routine contact with a child; or
Provides permanent or temporary care, supervision…, training or control of a child in lieu of parental care, supervision, and control – including direct or regular contact with a child through any program, activity or service sponsored by a for-profit or not-for-profit organization.
A Background Clearance consists of three steps:
Pennsylvania State Police report of criminal history for the applicant;
Department of Child Protective Services state-wide database check certification;
Federal criminal history record check via a full set of fingerprints submitted to the Pennsylvania State Police, who will submit the fingerprints to the FBI.
A volunteer (but not a paid coach or other personnel) who has lived in Pennsylvania continuously for the preceding ten years can skip Step 3 by swearing an affidavit with specific terms. Rugby PA has provided a template for this affidavit with this advisory for our teams to use.
Any person who has been convicted of a certain, specific series of Pennsylvania crimes (or similar crimes in other jurisdictions) and identified in Step 1 or Step 3, or who cannot be certified in accordance with Step 2, cannot work with children and cannot be employed or engaged as a volunteer by your organization.
Clubs are required to maintain documentation of all of the reports above background checks as long as the person is employed or engaged as a volunteer.
These laws apply to any organization that hires or selects employees or volunteers to work with children and also to the individuals within that organization who make decisions regarding employment or selection of volunteers. Therefore, the requirement is on each club – not just Rugby Pennsylvania – to comply.
Rugby PA will comply with respect to its own volunteers and employees, All-State Team coaches and volunteers, and all referees, but clubs should conduct these checks and maintain records for any head coach, assistant coach, athletic trainers (who are routinely engaged to work at home matches), or other employees or volunteers who interact with players.
In order to avoid confusion, Rugby PA has developed the following list of people and circumstances. You should check with Rugby PA (compliance@rugbypa.org) to clarify any situations that are not addressed here. Keep in mind the Rugby PA is offering this list for information only and the responsibility for compliance is ultimately on your organization:
Head Coaches (Paid or Volunteer)
Assistant Coaches (Paid or Volunteer)
Regularly-Engaged Medical Personnel (Paid or Volunteer)
Parents who supervise or direct field preparation or fundraising events
Players (14 years or older) who supervise team activities like “captain’s practices” or fundraising events
There is no fixed rule, but a good rule of thumb is any medical personnel who are present at two or more of your matches per season. Many Certified Athletic Trainers already have been cleared for working with children in the course of their regular work. If this is the case, you should request copies of the certifications from the three steps listed above and keep these copies as long as your club continues to work with the person.
Yes. The State Police Check (Step 1) is $10. The State-Wide Database Check (Step 2) is also $10. The FBI/Fingerprint Check (Step 3) is $27.50, but this step can be avoided if the person is (both) a volunteer and has lived in Pennsylvania for at least 10 years.
So, the total cost for a volunteer who has lived in Pennsylvania for 10 years or more is $20. The total cost for anyone else is $47.50.
Rugby PA has created a series of forms and instructions for your coaches and volunteers to use in preparing their documents for you to review. We’ve also created a coversheet & checklist for these forms to help you track each employee or volunteer. These forms are available at our website (www.rugbypa.org).
On these forms, you should complete Section 1 – Organization Information with your club’s information and give copies of the forms with this page completed to your various coaches and volunteers. They will give you back their forms with the required documentation and you should use the Section 1 page to track this information as it is submitted.
Important note: if you are hiring any volunteers or employees on a provisional basis (30 days for volunteers, 90 days for employees), all of the following criteria must apply:
The volunteer/employee must have already submitted all of the paperwork required for their clearances; and
They can only be engaged as a provisional employee or volunteer once – that is, you cannot extend the period by having them re-file their documents.
They cannot be permitted to work with children without direct and immediate supervision by someone who is cleared to do so.
Unfortunately, the background checks conducted by USA Rugby do not satisfy Pennsylvania Law. Since USA Rugby is a national body, their policies and procedures are written to broadly satisfy as many jurisdictional laws as possible. However, the changes to Pennsylvania law in 2014 mean that the USA Rugby background checks system is not sufficient to comply with our local law.
Rugby Pennsylvania, USA Rugby, and USA Rugby’s background checks vendor are in an ongoing dialog about ways to address this issue for the 2015-2016 CIPP Year, but for 2014-2015, clubs must comply on their own and this advisory is meant to assist Rugby PA’s clubs do that.
No. Neither Rugby PA nor USA Rugby subsidize these costs. The CIPP fees paid to USA Rugby for background checks are for the checks required by USA Rugby and their insurance carrier. Rugby PA is looking into ways to subsidize these costs in the future for some or all clubs.
You should NOT wait for this system to be finalized and you should proceed immediately with obtaining the background clearances listed above. Please retain copies of receipts for any payments made so that you may be reimbursed if Rugby PA and USA Rugby reach an arrangement to recoup costs.
First, any person who is named in the State-Wide Database Check (Step 2 above) as a perpetrator in a founded or indicated report of child abuse, or who is an alleged perpetrator in a pending investigation of child abuse, cannot be employed or engaged as a volunteer by your organization.
In addition to the Step 2 database check, the criminal background reports from Step 1 and Step 3 will list any prior convictions. The specific crimes which prohibit a person from ever working with children are:
|
Criminal Homicide (Murder, Manslaughter) Aggravated Assault Stalking Kidnapping Unlawful Restrain Rape Statutory Sexual Assault Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse Sexual Assault |
Indecent Exposure Incest Concealing the Death of a Child Endangering the Welfare of Children Dealing in Infant Children Felony Prostitution Offenses related to Obscene and other Sexual Materials or Performances Corruption of Minors |
Also included in this list is the attempt, solicitation, or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes. Note: a conviction for similar crimes at the Federal level or in another state also disqualifies the applicant. Unless indicated otherwise, the offenses may be felonies or misdemeanors.
Lastly, any felony conviction, for acts committed in the preceding 5 years, under The Controlled Substances Act disqualifies the applicant.
If you have any questions relating to whether a report disqualifies an applicant from working with your team, please feel free to inquire with compliance@rugbypa.org. Please do not send copies of the report via email, but you may list any language that concerns you.
A conviction for Driving Under the Influence does not automatically prohibit an applicant from working with Children under Pennsylvania Law unless the person was also convicted of one of the specific crimes listed above (for example, if a child was in the car, the person might have been convicted of both Driving Under the Influence and Endangering the Welfare of a Child).
Misdemeanor drug possession convictions do not disqualify a candidate under Pennsylvania Law.
However, it is important to remember that both USA Rugby’s background check policies and Pennsylvania Law apply here. If a person is not an accredited coach by USA Rugby, including completing the USA Rugby background check process, then that person may not coach any Rugby Pennsylvania team.
Yes. Pennsylvania law expressly permits organizations to impose additional requirements or disqualifying criteria, provided that they are not less restrictive than the Pennsylvania law. For example, you organization could determine that a prior conviction for Driving Under the Influence of Drugs or Alcohol would disqualify an applicant even if that would not disqualify the applicant under Pennsylvania law. However, you could not, decide that an Aggravated Assault conviction, even one decades ago, would be permitted because the Pennsylvania Law makes this a permanently disqualifying crime.
You should talk to an attorney about how to document and enforce these policies and Rugby Pennsylvania would be glad to assist you in getting that conversation started.
There are both civil and criminal penalties provided in Pennsylvania law for organizations and individuals within those organizations who fail to comply with the law or misuse the information obtained in the course of conducting clearances. The civil penalties can be as high as $2,500. The criminal penalty is a third degree misdemeanor for the first offense and a second degree misdemeanor for the second or subsequent offense.
Additionally, Rugby PA is considering requiring evidence of compliance for participation in its regular season in the future. If Rugby PA does decide to
For these reasons, and more, Rugby PA strongly encourages you to comply with the law and will be happy to assist you in any way we can to see that you do.
Teams who compete in Rugby Pennsylvania’s regular season are likely to be subject to the laws of Pennsylvania. As a result, Rugby Pennsylvania recommends, and may require, that out-of-state teams who regularly compete in Rugby Pennsylvania’s programs comply with the law as well.
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