Volunteer Screening?

[BerserkerSpyke]

Originally posted by Brm789
I think I've posted about this somewhere else but I'll say it again just so it gets somewhere. At what age do you stop being a student and become an adult? I hate to say this but...well...some students are rather old. In Delaware, especially in the public system, it isn't uncommon to have a senior graduate at 19. He is still a student yet an adult, by atleast a year, at the same time. Should he too then be required to have a background check done? And what about these kids you see on news programs who are 14-16 raped, beating, sexual molest, and/or just being cruel to other kids? What if one of those kids ended up on a team? I know there are applications and you have to show you want to be there for our team but still...you can't catch everything. I think what FIRST is doing is smart and safe, and I am all for it but I just question at how effective it is going to be. How do you know you don't have an 18 yr old senior with track record that would make you shudder? And....should you be checking your students too? Where does the line begin and end. I worry far too much for my age but you have to understand, someone has too...don't they?

And then there are teams made completely of college students (Team 190 of WPI for example). Are these students considered "adults" by FIRST?
Plus, how can FIRST expect people to give up the privacy of their past, maybe their acidents or just stupid mistakes, to volunteer to help a group of kids? Many people have secrets in their pasts that haunt them or they may have even redeemed for. Does a simple organization, a structured group activity, have the right to reveal the past of people just because they are above a certain age?

[Steve W]

Yes to most of your questions. As a Parent I want to know who my children are with. As a Mentor I want the parents to know who their child is with. Before FIRST brought this into effect I volunteered to get the police check done and I paid for it. As an outsider to the school, shouldn't I be willing to help make others comfortable. FIRST is a great program and well worth the time invested. I feel it should continue with as safe as enviorment as possible.
I know that there is never any for sures BUT do we want to take chances with our young people. Once you are no longer a student you become a mentor. It has nothing to do with being an adult. Many who know me say that I have never grown up and I have been out of school for over 30 years. Question might be "who is an adult?"

Originally posted by Steve W
Yes to most of your questions. As a Parent I want to know who my children are with. As a Mentor I want the parents to know who their child is with. Before FIRST brought this into effect I volunteered to get the police check done and I paid for it. As an outsider to the school, shouldn't I be willing to help make others comfortable. FIRST is a great program and well worth the time invested. I feel it should continue with as safe as enviorment as possible.
I know that there is never any for sures BUT do we want to take chances with our young people. Once you are no longer a student you become a mentor. It has nothing to do with being an adult. Many who know me say that I have never grown up and I have been out of school for over 30 years. Question might be "who is an adult?"

Exactly, who is an adult? I hate to say this but...everyone (students and adults) over the age of 14 should have a background check just to be sure. I doubt highly that anyone will show up anything on their record but wouldn't it make it safer for the rest of us? Don't you want to be sure you know the kid next to you isn't going to try and rape you? There are only three girls on my team (and some teams are all one sex) but that doesn't mean anything. That only means that there are less of a chance...but there is that chance. Too many bad things have happened to good people. FiRST was created to be a place to have students go to learn about Science and Technology in a safe and fun manner. They require us to wear safety glasses and not to do things that would be unsafe so I find this newest requirement great. I want to be safe and I want my fellow teammates to be safe. I'm not an adult and I'm not a mother but that doesn't mean I don't worry about others like a parent would. I do worry. I worry about my friends.

This is a great idea and I appluad it. I just feel that it should be done to everyone. If you are a freshman in high school, you should have a background check and if you have a team that is organized in manner that it is not associated with one school (such as MOE) then I think that there should at the very least be a look given to the school records. Has the student been suspended? Expelled? Why? How many detetenions have they received that year? For what? I mean, come on. Do you really want a student on the team who has been suspended three times in the past year for fighting with other students? I do not mean to say that this should just be the main factor of whither they are in or not but rather that it should be a peice of thought that is there. Think about this guys. You are trusting complete strangers with your life every single time you walk in that door. Every time you sit down and start a meeting, you are trust the people around you to be honest outstanding members of the community. This newest requirement is only there the ensure that your trust isn't blindly and falsely put into those people.

[Wetzel]

This background check would show nothing that the police do not have. Suspensions and expulsions are part of a school record that would not show up on any background check.

What about the engineers on the team that have already gone through major hoops for clearance at work, or even just to get hired? I had a Virginia State Police background check done has part of becoming an EMT, will that count or will I have to pay another $10 (I spent $60 already on the VSP one) to get the 'sanctioned' background check.

Has anyone received details yet on what what done? All the FIRST website says is

FIRST will contact registered teams via email in October to provide details on how to meet the screening requirements. We believe that these new measures will help provide parents of children who participate in FIRST programs a greater sense of security

I do appreciate how FIRST dosn't even pretend that this will actually increase security, but only the perception thereof.


Wetzel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unnecessary and ineffective

[Wetzel]

So anyone seen any info on how to do the background checks?

If they don't figure this out soon, it won't be much good. Teams are already starting to meet often, and it takes time for the checks to actually be run.


Wetzel

[kpugh]

http://forums.chiefdelphi.com/showth...er+screeni ng
Not sure if this is just for FLL or if FIRST Robotics mentors have to do it too.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

So anyone seen any info on how to do the background checks?

FIRST has already provided that information to the main team contact. It is up to the main team contact to go from there.

[JonA]

Here is the e-mail blast archive thread on the FIRST Youth Protection and Adult Leadership policy.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=22968

[Yan Wang]

Let's see...

Our head engineer is the father of two of the people on our team. One of them a junior, one a freshman at RIT.

The head engineer works @ BorgWarner and works sometimes with our 2nd engineer... who is also father of a student on the team, also a junior.

Our electrical engineer was father of someone who used to be on the team.

My dad works with the first 2 mentioned engineers at BorgWarner... I have known these people for a long time, along with their kids on the team. Even if the background check fee is waived, it's still a waste of time for our team mentors.

Then again, I also do agree that it won't hurt to do it.

[Anarkissed]

Does anyone else feel slightly disheartened at the fact that people volunteering their time must be scrutinized, making sure they haven't made a mistake in their past which may be seen as something endangering a childs life or wellbeing?

All FIRST Team Mentors are required to complete a standardized internet-based background check process. Adults already screened by a public school system to work with youth are exempt from the application and screening process. A Team Mentor is defined as any adult, 18 or older, who works directly with youth on a FIRST Robotics Competition or FIRST LEGO League team. FIRST will issue separate guidance for teams located outside the United States.

According to this, I as an 18 year old senior that will graduate 19, and vice-president of our team, need a backround check. Can I not take my friend aside during a robotics competition and talk to them privately if they are not an adult?

A friend of mine is 19, in high school, and thinking about being on the team. According to FIRSTS policy it would be necessary for him to pass the background check. I doubt he would. All personal feelings aside, he had a significant other for about a year and she was underage, this resulted in charges being pressed by her parents when they found out how old he was at the time (18). This friend of mine is now permenantly a registered sexual offender in the state of Michigan and it will follow him forever.

This policy of background screening for all adults involved has many implications, most of which were discussed earlier in the thread and I don't feel like reiterating what has already been said by others. This topic does need serious consideration on the part of everyone involved. From parents to mentors to students, this policy needs to be weighed, for all the costs, not just monetary, and the benefits.

A former Prime Minister of England said that you cannot outlaw childhood, no matter what children are going to die. This was in response to many rediculous pieces of legislation that were turning up in England and in the USA. 'Oh no, someone choked to death because of the string in a hooded sweatshirt, lets ban them!' This philosophy can also be applied to crime. Take the sweatshirt strings, as a parallel to the backround checks, it would be similar to putting bright red flashing lights on the ends of the strings in a sweatshirt. You bring attention to them, look at them, but it doesn't really change the fact that in some rare incident, someone is going to get hurt. Humanity is not perfect, must we search everyones past for something publicly known which haunts them. Everyone has at least one skeleton in their closet, last I heard the messiah hasn't returned yet. Each citizen on this planet has things in their past which aren't good, it is a fact of life. If someone has a sufficiently bad past, who's right is it to tell them that they cannot make an attempt to do good to make up for their wrongs.


A slightly unnverved Will Gibbins

[Bill Beatty]

It won't do any good, but I will feel better if I sound off one more time about these ridiculous background checks.

Many of these students will be out of school in a few months. Who is going to protect them after they graduate? Most all of them are 14 years old or older, not exactly young children that would be easy prey.

But a larger issue, what is the criteria and who makes the call as to what is the acceptable background? Is the only concern a sex offender? If that is the area of concern, then call it a sex offender background check. Or, if other areas of background will eliminate you from being on a FIRST team, what are they? Would a murderer be allowed? How about someone convicted of manslaughter? A DUI? Maybe five DUI's? Domestic violence? A drug conviction? A drug user? Someone who smoked or inhaled something? Where do you draw the background line and who decides if a person is in or out? Do we have to go through screening every year? These are real questions concerning an individuals past and maybe affecting their future.

If we keep expanding these types of measures, we are going to create a generation of paranoid, unself-reliant folks unable to make decisions for themselves and demanding that "someone" protect them from all things.

There, I feel much better.

[dez250]

Truthfully, I have very mixed opinions on this issue and I won’t post them here at this time, but what I will say, is that I think more teams probably have unsafe working conditions with their tools and other items then with other people on the team. Yes cases do come up here and there where something happened with 2 people that shouldn’t have and may be criminal in suite, but how is this going to help FIRST, by doing background checks. It really is just a COA (Cover One's A**) so if something does come up they wont be held responsible, but other then that, this is all just frivolous.

~Mike

P.S. ~ What about the people that volunteer at events, and aren’t associated with teams, do they need background checks?

[Raul]

I have been trying to figure out whether or not the background checks are a good thing. I have decided that it depends on how we react to them. We should accept what FIRST is trying to accomplish and create team rules that make it safe for students in all cases, not just safety glasses and learning how to work with tools. Well, I accept what FIRST is trying to do, but I have a few concerns:

1) Just because someone’s background check shows up clean does not mean they do not have the potential to cause problems.

2) Even if they do have a tainted background, do people not deserve a second chance? By the mere fact that they are not in jail, the justice system has already decided that they are not a huge threat – just a small threat.

The point I am trying to make is that regardless of background checks, we should have team rules that monitor all activities and do not allow mentor/student situations to exist that may lead to an incident. Mature people should know better than to allow themselves to ever be put in a situation where suspicions could arise. Mentors should simply never allow themselves to be alone with one student if they are not in a very public location. That includes never giving a student a ride in a car.

And in the case where someone was found to have done something wrong in the past, could we not just discuss it with them and make sure they can only be with students when other adults are present?



Raul

[dlavery]

As a parent, I have no problem with the concept of a check to ensure that those with whom I am entrusting my children are worthy and deserving of that trust. In concept, this should give me a higher degree of confidence that my child will be safe while out of my immediate care. In concept, my 14-year-old will be better protected as a result of such a check.

But then the concept collides with reality.

For all the reasons that Bill Beatty and others have previously articulated, I do not believe that this system will provide a net positive effect. To the contrary, I believe that the long term effects will be detrimental to the overall program. Rather than re-voice what they have already said, I will just urge everyone to re-read all the associated threads, and think carefully about how this may affect you and your team.

I will throw in two pragmatic points about the particular implementation of this process.

Identity theft and credit fraud are real, serious problems. To discourage and help prevent them, and other abuses of your Social Security Number (including resale of your SSN to other organizations), everyone is urged to take precautions against distribution of their SSN. Furthermore, the SSN is used way-too-frequently to gather information and intrude into the legitimate privacy of U.S. citizens. I have absolutely no intention to divulge my SSN to anyone that does not have a statutory requirement for access to that information.

While it is legal for anyone, including a background-check organization, to request your Social Security Number, you are under no legal obligation to provide it. Under Federal law, you are only required to provide your SSN to employers (for wage and tax purposes), specific local/state/federal government organizations from which you receive benefits, support or employment, and for court/legal actions. No private organizations are specifically authorized to require or use your SSN (for more on this, see Testimony Of Deputy Commissioner Lockhart before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security and the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, on Preserving the Integrity of Social Security Numbers and Preventing Their Misuse by Terrorists and Identity Thieves, September 19, 2002). If someone wants to run a check on me, and they do not employ me, they are going to have to do it without my SSN.

While brings me to my second issue. A significant percentage of the engineers and mentors on the teams are performing those functions at least in part in an official capacity and as representatives of their organizations. If the company is lending support (through funding of the employee’s time, provision of materials and/or facilities, direct financial contributions in concert with the employee’s participation on the team, authorizing use of leave to participate in team events, etc.) then there is a direct connection between the participation of the company and the participation of the engineer/mentor. In other words, they are acting as employees, and not purely as private citizens just volunteering their time. As such, the employer has a say in any third party trying to gather data on their employees. In my case, my employer - the Federal government - does not always look favorably upon efforts to create directories of government employee information (including SSNs). In some cases organizational policy can explicitly prohibit the employee from providing such information. In other cases,(military, law enforcement, national security, etc. organizations – all of which are represented by mentors with existing FIRST teams) it can actually be illegal to try to gather information on them.

I, and virtually every other NASA employee associated with our participation in the FIRST program, am acting at least in part in an official capacity. As such, it is "Dave Lavery - NASA employee", not "Dave Lavery - private citizen," that is being asked to submit to a background check. My organization has not authorized this, nor authorized any of us to share any personnel-related information (including about ourselves) with any third party organization. And without explicit directions to the contrary from the NASA General Council, I do not see how I will ever provide such information.

So, mentors, how do your companies feel about this?

-dave

-----------------------------

27 days to go !!!!!!

[Steve W]

Last post on this topic for me (I hope). As a volunteer and mentor I am glad to see this implemented. Before this process was even mentioned I had gotten a check done and submitted to the team. This is good for the team, the parents and me. The system may not be perfect and definitely won't pick up first time offenders but it does cover a lot of potential problems. It may be for my protection more than the students. It shows that I am not afraid to have a check done, that I am willing to be watched and that I want to be accountable for my actions.

Yes some people may not be allowed to be mentors because of their past and that may seem unfair BUT is it not better to err on the safe side. Remember it is not a right to be a mentor on a FIRST team but a privilege. I think we should be willing to help FIRST and support their decisions all the way. Do people think that this is just a whim by FIRST. Much thought and background work has gone into this implementation. FIRST has increased its workload by doing this. WHY?

As for students that are 18 or 19, you are still students and not mentors. Once you are no longer a student at the school and you return to help THEN you become a mentor. This is common sense. I see people on this thread being soooo legalistic without using common sense. It's almost like picking the rules apart to find any small way to beat them. Lets try to boost FIRST and help them at this time rather than pick them apart for trying to do what's best for everyone. FIRST is one GREAT organization and I am proud to be associated with it. Lets stand behind and support them as they move forward.

Enough ranting,

EDIT: I have just read Daves remarks and maybe I don't know all of the facts. I do live in Canada ( EH ! ) and my background check is done by the Police. I must go in fill out forms and submit to them. When the background check is done I receive the results in the mail saying if I passed or not. I then submit to the team. To have an outside source do the check and have all my info then I would also have to think twice. Thanks Dave for the insight.