Information from C4CJ.org:
On October 22 of last year, House Bill 435 (PN 4225) was signed into law becoming Act 153 of 2014. The final version of this legislation, which addresses background checks for employees and volunteers arrived on Governor Corbett’s desk following a unanimous vote in the Pennsylvania Senate (RCS# 760) and a 175 to 18 vote (RCS# 1764) in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
Prospective volunteers will be required to obtain required background checks beginning July 1, 2015 with updated checks required every 36 months.
Act 153 of 2014, which was spearheaded by Representative Dan Moul (R-Adams and Franklin), will have a direct impact on paid employees working with children and unpaid volunteers in Pennsylvania, including those volunteering in churches and faith-based organizations.
The law outlines the eight types of “employees” that are subject to comprehensive and regularly updated criminal and child abuse background checks (see Table 1).
This new PA law extends beyond paid employees so that it is applicable to those unpaid volunteers “responsible for the welfare of a child or having direct contact with children.” The Child Protective Services Law (CPSL) defines “direct contact with children” as “The care, supervision, guidance or control of children or routine interaction with children.”
While many community-based programs (e.g., Girl and Boy Scouts, school chaperones, youth sports programs) and religiously-affiliated organizations have long required background checks for volunteers, Pennsylvania law provides a specific directive on the timing and type of checks now required.
These new legal requirements will force many community-based organizations and churches to rework the way they screen potential volunteers.
Over the years, many organizations and churches utilized the services of a third party vendor to determine whether a prospective volunteer had any criminal arrests or convictions. This proved a less expensive route for community-based and religiously-affiliated organizations, but it also limited the background information captured about the prospective employee or volunteer.
Such third party checks, for instance, were not able to check a statewide child abuse registry to determine if a person was named as a perpetrator of an indicated or founded report of child abuse.
Statewide child abuse databases or registries are established in state laws, across the United States, in order to provide an added layer of information when a person is seeking to work or volunteer with children. It is possible for a person to have escaped criminal conviction (potentially never even had criminal charges filed), but still have been determined to be a perpetrator of child abuse following a child abuse investigation was completed by child welfare authorities either alone or jointly with law enforcement. Certain cases like child sexual abuse (e.g. involving younger children who are less verbal) may result in a person being placed on the child abuse registry as a perpetrator of child abuse, even if they were not criminally convicted.
This confidential child abuse database/registry is not made available to the public. It is accessible to certain limited parties during the course of future investigations (e.g., law enforcement) or toward determining a person’s suitability as an employee of volunteer in a child-serving setting.

To complete a form, download it HERE or go online to  https://epatch.state.pa.us/Home.jsp.

– For more information or to view informationsource, visit http://www.c4cj.org/files/cjar1132104backgroundchecks.pdf.