CRB for parents taking other children to clubs, what about if they come over for a playdate?

Round of applause from me for BoffinMum Sun 13-Sep-09 20:21:38

Plus I was going to say rather than the CRB that is only valid on the day

Well wouldn't it be more sensible to be given a reference number (like a NI number)that means that you register as a person that works with children - it links to government databases and this can be checked as a new employee or periodically as a permanent employee and it flags up any problems (the various depatments would have to update the records). This way you are not having to have a new CRB check each time you have a living record - or is this too much like the ID scheme??

myself and my husband escort our 2 autistic daughters to and from school in a taxi. we do this voluntry as they are our children. is it compulsery to have the new crb vetting. we are( confused) as we have been doing this for over 3 years

well the new crb check they are bringing in will be much better - it will be great to have just one for all settings that is constantly updated.

It's a good thing IF they've been convicted and the CRB is done properly. It's a good thing IF it's done regularly enough to catch any convictions/charges. It's a good thing IF they've been caught.

I actually think it lulls people into a false sense of security, but as it stands it's got to be done so we have to go along with it really.

i just don't get what the problem is - everyone who works with children paid or voluntarily needs to be crb checked - that is the point it - is the law, what is the point in getting our knickers in a twist about whether we think it right or wrong or beneficial, it means that someone convicted of a crime against children or living with someone convicted of a crime against children cannot work with children - this surely is a good thing.

CRB checks are, in reality worth less than the paper they're written on. My last CRB check for Brownies was 2004. I could have served a prison term since then! I turned up to help during that time so clearly haven't been in prison but new parents don't know that and still, presumably, trust the 2004 CRB because they've left their children with me. And although the checks aren't portable I've worked as a nanny using them and got babysiting work because parents, who DID want to know I wasn't a child-molesting axe murderer. However if you start objecting to CRBs people start getting edgy so it's lose-lose with the current system really:

Go along with it, it's a waste of money, a waste of time filling in forms

Don't go along with it, don't get the job/can't volunteer.

The new system would be a significant improvement if they weren't trying to fiddle with it and expand it to cover people it doesn't really need to. The other option would be for individuals to apply for the check, like my French check, which is portable because it just shows EVERYTHING the government know about me and my criminal record (which is precisely nothing because it's a sheet of paper with a black diagonal line).

PS Bad stuff seems to be happening at the Rocking Horse Nursery ... by CRB checked people, presumably ...

You can't apply for a CRB check as an individual, it has to be through an approved organisation. Hence it is impossible for individual kusic teachers working as private teachers to get one (in reality many of them have them for doing peripatetic work in schools, but not everyone does that kind of work).

A parent has never asked me about CRB checks or anything like that because here's the thing that nobody's saying. The statistics mean that if their children are abused, it is 99.9% likely it will be by a bloke, not a married mum of four. That's why Nick must have had problems with Social Services in their pre-crime initiative.

IMO if we really cared about children we would stop them crossing the road or travelling in cars - these situations are many thousands of times more likely to harm or kill them than abusers. Obviously we're not happy to constrain our lives like that, so we go for the extremely rare but easy to spin option.

BoffonMum, these days do most parents not expect a music teacher to have a CRB check?

I have considerable sympathy with your views, by the way, I'm just surprised that any music teacher would get much custom without one.

And - afaics this scheme is simply an extension of the old scheme, and means that you only have to register once. I know freelance drama tutors who have been checked by about 6 different organisations. I have been checked twice, once by my organisation, and in the same week by an organisation fo whom I am an unpaid board member and never come into close contact with the young participants. Both cost the charities concerned the relevant fee, both are now out of date and I could have racked up a string of convictions since.

Also - it may not have been a legal necessity to have CRB checks in place until now, but few charities and (I would guess) no local authorities have funded organisations who emply un-CRB's people to work with children since, oooooooh, yonks ago.

Update from professional association. If you do 1:1 teaching or coaching and are hired by the parents, you won't need the check. If you are hired by a school or organisation, you will.

Stealth, I actually agree about the portability. The previous situation was a bit bonkers to say the least.

To the OP - it seems clear to me that the answer is for arrangements to be between parents, rather than with the club/organisation, in which case you will not need the check.

Unless they get their act in gear, whether or not people are willing to tolerate the intrusion will be the least of the problems. I know a head who says he can forsee having classes with no-one to teach them, and teachers sat at home, because not all the paperwork will have come through by the deadline.

I agree absolutely on the point made about it encouraging parents to trust a piece of paper above their own judgement, but I do think that one positive step forward is that it will be one check per individual and will be 'portable' - avoiding the daft situation of people having to have a separate check for every professional / voluntary activity.

Does anyone know when you can get this check from?

Because of a piece of paper we'll be more relaxed?

I'll be the same as ever. I'll use my own judgement.

well said BoffinMum clap, clap, clap

Children shouldn't need "a chance to integrate", for good or ill they are a part of our society and trying to quarantine them in this way is harmful.

boffinmum - no offence taken - CRB checks may or may not make children safer but they do make the parents feel more relaxed about leaving their children with relative strangers,so in a way this does give they children more chance to intergrate.
if a parent feels uncomfortable with someone - CRB checked or not - surely they will not leave their kids with them.

If you have anything to do with kids professionally, you will have to fork out 60-something squids for a new type of check, or it will be illegal to have contact with them.

Currently the emphasis is different - organisations do not have to insist on you having a CRB check if they don't want to.
It is not illegal to work with kids without a CRB check, as music teachers do, for example. But from next year it appears it will be illegal to give a piano lesson to a child / go into schools to talk in assembly about fly fishing/ run a stall at a school fete without having this permit/licence/whatever you want to call it.

I already have a CRB check and I thought I needed something else in addition. Is this not true or do I need to fork out money for another document?

Well, personally speaking, I get outraged about these checks because they are expensive, inefficient, often inaccurate and lead people to trust bits of paper instead of their judgement. Because abuse often takes place for years or decades before a conviction takes place, I do not believe they make children any safer - that's just lazy thinking based on government spin (sorry for any offence VintageViolet, nothing personal). Removing children from mainstream society like this runs the grave risk of damaging them through them losing the ability to trust fellow human beings, build relationships with strangers, share in community life and generally be part of a larger whole. We are ghettoising them as a result of a collective nervous breakdown about the role of children in society, and there may be very serious consequences to all of us, children included, that go well beyond the damage caused by paedophilia, violence, etc.

Plus on a personal level I take exception to the government bossing me about all the time like I am somehow potentially flawed and dangerous. I know a lot more about children than most of them, yet my voice remains unheard in all this.

That having been said, I have no objection to routine police checks in general relating to my work, it's the frequent, pedantic, intrusive and repetitive nature of CRB/VBS checks and so on I object to, especially now I am having to pay for them myself for work, and they don't seem to be tax-deductible.

For the record I don't have any truck with the age-old argument that 'if you are innocent you have nothing to fear' for two main reasons. Firstly IMO you have everything to fear because in this McCarthyesque climate you may be wrongly accused of something and have your life ruined, with little recourse. Secondly that is the exact same argument that Victorians used to justify the law allowing random women to be stopped in the street and stopped for compulsory gynaecological checks for STDs at the whim of police officers. I never thought I would see our society back there in my lifetime.

I wish they had put more resources into developing List 99 properly rather than introducing an entirely new system like something out of 1984.

well i barely pay tax but i see what you mean and childrens safety is worth more than money isn't it?

It is costing you VV in your taxes!!

crb checks are a good thing - anyone working with children as a volunteer or paid should be checked - i don't understand why people get so outraged about it
i have one crb check for my childminding , one for my breast feeding peer support work, one for being on the pre-school commitee and am just applying for another to allow me to help out in my son's school - think how much that is costing someone not me i hasten to add.

I want an ID card! It would make life so much easier when I'm living on the continent and not in the UK.

TBH I'll be checked and have done with it.