by Jack Jones
One of the things that scares parents the world over is the idea of leaving their precious children alone with a stranger. Or even someone who is not a stranger. There have been stories in the news of parents going out for an evening, leaving their children in the hands of a babysitter, just like millions of other parents around the world. Unfortunately, it has happened, and continues to happen, that sometimes the person chosen by parents to entrust their children to has a history of violence, or worse, a history of sexual assault, or pedophilia.
In order to prevent, and ensure the safety of your children, it is important that always perform a babysitter background check. A proper background check has three major steps: The first step is to speak with the potential candidate about his past. The second step is to speak with other adults who know the potential babysitter. The final step, most importantly, is to perform a criminal background check to see if there is anything in the potential babysitter’s past which might make them a bad choice to entrust your precious children to.
Steps of a Babysitter Background Check
1.Interview your potential babysitter. Ask them about their past, about their parents. How they explain their past will give you some type of insight into who they are, and how they will treat others. How they were treated by their parents is often reflects how they will treat your children in turn. Their concept of authority is shaped by their parents’ authority over them. When placed in authority over your children, they will emulate their parents.
2.Speak with references. Talk with other adults who know the person you are checking. Do some cross checking, to ensure that your potential baby sitter’s story is true. Any inconsistencies in the stories may indicate that your potential babysitter is lying. A babysitter who is not truthful may be hiding something from you. Or perhaps not. Either way, this indicates that your candidate is not someone of high standards of character.
3.Perform a Criminal Records check. There are multiple ways of doing this. Criminal records are publicly available from every state and jurisdiction. The problem is, there are so many different records to check, in each and every state. If you were to attempt to perform checks in all these different records by yourself, it may take weeks or months to properly check each and every different source. In addition, there will be a high cost associated with this method of search, since every records source will have associated clerk’s fees. Luckily, there are companies who have collected all the records in one place, and for a very low yearly fee, will allow you to search their database for as many people as you may need. Some companies I would recommend are Webstigate , Investigate123 or CriminalFiles.
In order to ensure the safety of your children when you leave them alone with a babysitter, it is necessary to perform a babysitter background check. By examining the criminal records of a potential babysitter, you may quickly find out whether there is anything in their past which might make them an unsuitable candidate to watch over your children. Finally, their are some respectable companies who will be happy to open their criminal records databases to you, in order that you may perform a comprehensive background check against your potential babysitters. Ensure the safety of your children – perform a babysitter background check today!
Jack Jones writes for CivilRecords.org.
