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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think any parentts volunteering on a regularly basis in schools should be CRB checked....

36 replies

allthreerolledintoone · 17/11/2009 19:02

I was speaking to one of the parents from school and she has volunteered herself to help out one afternon per week. She had to ring the LEA and everything first but was told she wouldnt need to be CRB checked. We were both shocked at this and although i can see why this may be the case i almost feel that after the whole vanessa george/ian huntley case maybe anyone coming into contact with children should CRB checked.

OP posts:
flossie64 · 17/11/2009 19:05

I thought the law had changed.
I help at my DD's school and I am CRB checked ,but I work there as well occasionally.
I lived in Scotland for many years and yoou always had to be checked ,even to just go in and mount work etc.

Astrid28 · 17/11/2009 19:06

Thats strange, I don't know if its the same everywhere though. A friend of mine volunteers at her sons primary school once every few months on a parents rota and they all had to be CRB checked for that.

ComeONFabStopStressingSOMuch · 17/11/2009 19:07

That doesn't sound right.

I have been CRB checked and are only helping out one morning a week.

squirrel42 · 17/11/2009 19:10

Sometimes policies for volunteers working with children are that only those who may be left unsupervised around children must be CRB checked. If there will always be the teacher/TA/other checked member of staff present then that might be why?

I would say it's probably good practice to be checked regardless of supervision though.

tkband3 · 17/11/2009 19:10

It's my understanding that a parent can't help out in a school, even occasionally, without at least having a CRB check. I was CRB checked last year to read once a week with Year 2, and expected to be able to do the same this year, but after the recent changes in the law, there are additional procedures to be completed (which as our school is particularly inefficient at getting this sort of thing done, haven't happened yet, and so the school will soon have missed out on a whole term of help from willing parents ).

SolidGoldBangers · 17/11/2009 19:10

Oh FFS, sure you wouldn't want them all brain-scanned, fingerprinted and fitted with electric shock monitors in case of anti-government thoughts, as well?

JemL · 17/11/2009 19:11

Vanessa George was CRB checked though, wasn't she? Not disagreeing that parents volunteering should be checked, but it isn't a guarantee that an individual isn't a threat.

shockers · 17/11/2009 19:18

I have parents who help out with the school garden and they have to be CRB checked.

allthreerolledintoone · 17/11/2009 19:46

i wouldnt go that extreme solidgold. I realise that if a person is CRB checked it doesn't gurantee anything.You are right it was because they said the volunteer wouldnt be left alone with any of the children so a CRB check wasn't needed.I was still shocked to find this the case though.

OP posts:
asdx2 · 17/11/2009 20:07

According to DS who is the senior Advisor to the local councils CRB team. Volunteers would normally have a list 99 check at the very least and a full CRB if the volunteer was expected to be in school 13 times in the course of a year.
OFSTED are very watchful of a school's vetting procedure of volunteers and would be unhappy at having unchecked volunteers in school.

hazeyjane · 17/11/2009 20:10

I am on school committee and have been crb checked, because I might have to help out some times, so that does sound a bit odd.

4kidsandlovingit · 17/11/2009 23:27

I`m a registered childminder and despite already having a full CRB for that our local school still had to run another one on me when I helped out as a volunteer for a while. I thought that everyone who went in to school to help had to be checked now.

Vallhala · 17/11/2009 23:43

I was required to be CRB checked as a member of the PTA committee and owing to being asked to help out on a school trip. These happened at the same time so I'm unsure whether this was because of the trip, the PTA or both. Admittedly this was not long after the Soham tragedy and within the same county but even so I am surprised that the mum in question isn't required to have a CRB check.

That said I understand that a couple of years later a mother helped out in the schoolroom despite having had complaints made about her to the Head about her aggressive and abusive behaviour towards a couple of pupils and SS interest in her own DC.

busybutterfly · 17/11/2009 23:45

I was CRB checked for a job a few miles away, now got a job locally and need another one because it's in a different area.

I would be amazed if the OP is right.

MinkyBorage · 17/11/2009 23:47

dh has volunteered himself to be company secretary of dd2s nursery for the year, the whole comittee has had to be crb checked.

aristocat · 17/11/2009 23:50

i help out at DCs school and i was CRB checked straight away.

i thought it was essential too, am shocked its not.

Squishabelle · 17/11/2009 23:53

Its pathetic and getting beyond a joke. What about sixth formers who reach 18 years old whilst still at school. Are they going to be CRB checked just in case they enter the school toilets and happen to encounter an under 18 year old pupil. Where will all this sillyness end?

branflake81 · 18/11/2009 07:57

I think that several recent cases have shown the CRB means fuck all anyway so I am not convinced it really makes a difference.

bellissima · 18/11/2009 08:28

I help out with the 'Foosteps' road safety teaching at DCs' school, and we are CRB checked for that (County Council pays). But I also go in to help with reading and I don't think you need to be checked for that, fairly sure I was doing it before I was checked.

MillyMollyMoo · 18/11/2009 08:30

People need to stop relying so much on CRB checks, all they mean is that somebody hasn't been caught or convicted of a violent or child related crime.
I know of a mother reading to the kids at schools who's been to prision for theft hardly a positive role model and somebody who's character is wholesome.

LIZS · 18/11/2009 09:00

Agree it has changed recently. You need a CRB check if you are in any circumstances helping out or working in a school enviromnment or with vulnerable adults. You used to be able to start work if it had been submitted but now you need the certificate. You also used to be able to have a certificate from one place resued for another but each has to be employer specific now.

ginnybag · 18/11/2009 12:17

We have to be CRB checked to run our local youth group, but there's no legal requirement for it AFAIK.

Point made earlier is a good one - CRB check's wonlt tell you anything if the person has never been convicted of anything. All it will do is screen out people who have been. So the more 'sucessful', if you follow, criminals will still pass just fine.

Not sure what can be done about that, though.

Pikelit · 18/11/2009 13:25

I'm increasingly concerned at the way exaggerated fears of paedophilia are being plastered over by demands for additional CRB checking.

My dp runs a community transport service and he spends a fair proportion of his working week dealing with CRB checks. He concludes that while the results can be marvellously satisfying for the congenitally nosy, the process itself isn't an overly effective way of screening out people who shouldn't work with young people and/or vulnerable adults. A CRB check proves that someone hasn't been caught. Yet.

At the same time, it can mean the dismissal of an otherwise good member of staff because they once, many years earlier, committed an offence (entirely unrelated to child abuse) that drops the offender into the category of "beyond redemption". Of course, in an ideal but unreal world, everyone who came into contact with children/vulnerable adults would have an impeccable reputation but the CRB check takes no account of how a very youthful transgressor might have grown up to be a pillar of the local community.

If there is too great an insistence on CRB checking everyone who might, just possibly, be allowed to speak to an "unprotected" child then many activities will simply come to an end for the lack of volunteers. It isn't good enough to say that only people who have something relevant to hide will wish to avoid a CRB check either.

In the meantime, the serious business of paedophilia goes on far beyond the reach of a CRB check. Indeed, it wasn't until I worked on an investigation into grooming that I realised just how clever and horribly cunning the committed child abusers were.

SolidGoldBangers · 18/11/2009 14:24

Also, given how frequently the CRB checkers demonstrate sexism and fuckwittery, why would anyone trust them to be getting their paperwork right? (Their insistence that women who use the title Ms are divorced and lying about it being the prime example).

PeedOffWithNits · 18/11/2009 14:31

I have CRBs coming out me ears!!

*school (classroom helper & PTA)

*rainbows ( am a guider, parents who help occasionally do not need a CRB BUT cannot be left alone with the children AT ALL)

*sunday school/toddler grp at church

as a parent it did concern me that some of the people helping in school on trips even getting changed for swimming were not CRBd, but now everyone has to be

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