Kenora Association for Community Living

Criminal Reference Police Check Policy

June 15 2005

Definitions

For the purposes of this Criminal Reference Police Check policy the following words or terms are defined as follows:

CPIC refers to Canadian Police Information Check

Direct Contact or direct service is used to describe situations where a staff member or volunteer has unsupervised contact with clients, generally as a regular part of his or her duties

KACL refers to the Kenora Association for Community Living

Police Reference Check is a term used to denote the process of securing information from the police about individuals , as well as to describe the form or report or information provided.

Staff The word staff is used as a collective noun to include all those individuals who perform services or work for KACL

Volunteers The word volunteer is used to identify an individual 1) who chooses of his or her own free will to undertake and perform some service; 2) who does this service for KACL and 3) who does not receive a salary or wage for this service. Members of KACL Board and committees are volunteers.

Vulnerable persons is used to denote individuals who are at greater risk of being harmed than the general population because of their age (all children), disability or handicap, or circumstances, whether temporary or permanent.

Policy:

Criminal reference checks shall be conducted on KACL volunteers and employees , engaged or hired after March 31 1995, when these individuals provide direct services to children or vulnerable adults, in the course of which they have unsupervised access to these clients.

Requests for Criminal Police Checks, consents for Criminal Police Checks and reports shall be in the forms agreed to by KACL and the Police Services providing the information and shall conform to legal requirements including the Ontario Human Rights Act.

Individuals with outstanding Criminal Code Convictions , five years old or more recent, or charges pending , for certain offences will not be accepted by KACL for a direct service position with vulnerable clients. These offences include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:

Physical or sexual assault;

Current prohibitions or probation orders forbidding the individual to have contact with children under the age of 14;

Offences under the Child and Family Services Act relating to abuse of children;

Outstanding convictions or charges pending for any offence deemed violent, whether or not it involved weapons;

Outstanding convictions or charges pending for criminal driving offences, including but not limited to impaired driving.

Individuals may be excluded from positions within KACL as a result of other information gained during the police reference check process, and/or as a consequence of other factors identified through the screening process.

In addition to a police reference check, all applicants will be asked by the appropriate staff person if any of these exclusions apply to them. Their response will be kept in their individual files. If the agency learns that an applicant lied with respect to these matters, the applicant will be disciplined and/or dismissed immediately .