Does Your Daycare Screen Volunteers and Contractors?

By Jacqueline Williamson | Founder and Owner, TruePath Identity Hub | June 2026

Most daycare directors and childcare administrators think about background checks when they hire a new employee. They run the state check. They verify credentials. They check references. And then they move on feeling confident that their facility is protected.

But there is a group of adults who interact with children in your facility every single day who are often never screened at all.

Volunteers. Substitute teachers. Cleaning crews. Tutors. Transportation drivers. Contractors.

If your screening program stops at paid employees you have a significant gap — and that gap could put the children in your care at serious risk.

Who Counts as a Volunteer or Contractor?

Before we talk about screening it helps to be specific about who we are talking about. In most daycare and childcare settings the adults who regularly interact with children but are not on the payroll include:

Parent volunteers who come in for classroom events field trips and special activities. These are often the most trusted adults in the facility — parents of enrolled children — and they are almost never screened.

Substitute teachers who come from staffing agencies. Many facilities assume the staffing agency has already screened these individuals. Sometimes they have. Often the screening was minimal — a basic state check without the federal records or the child abuse registry.

Cleaning and janitorial crews who come in after hours or during the day. These individuals have unsupervised access to every room in your facility including storage areas bathrooms and classrooms. They are almost never screened by the daycare.

Maintenance contractors and repair technicians who come in to fix equipment repair plumbing or service HVAC systems. Again — direct access to your facility — almost never screened.

Tutors and enrichment program providers who come in to provide music lessons art instruction or academic tutoring. These individuals often work with small groups of children with minimal supervision.

Transportation drivers who pick up and drop off children. These individuals are alone with children in a vehicle — one of the most vulnerable situations possible.

Every single one of these adults should be screened. Every one.

Why Volunteers Are the Biggest Gap

Of all the groups listed above parent volunteers represent the most significant screening gap in most childcare facilities. Here is why.

There is an assumption of safety. Because these are parents of children already enrolled in your facility there is an inherent level of trust. They are vetted by association — or so the thinking goes.

But being a parent does not mean being safe. A parent who is a registered sex offender in another state is still a parent. A parent with a substantiated finding of child abuse in a previous state is still a parent. A parent with a federal criminal record is still a parent.

The state background check you run on your employees would catch none of these if the records are from another state or from federal court.

The Legal Liability Question

Here is something most daycare directors do not realize until it is too late.

If an unscreened volunteer or contractor harms a child in your facility your organization may be held legally responsible — not just morally responsible but financially and legally liable.

The question a plaintiff’s attorney will ask is simple — did you know or should you have known that this person posed a risk to children?

If you had a policy of screening employees but not volunteers and a volunteer harmed a child — the answer to that question is very uncomfortable.

A consistent screening policy that covers everyone with regular access to children is your best legal protection. Not just employees. Everyone.

What Screening Should Cover for Volunteers and Contractors

The good news is that volunteer and contractor screening does not have to be as comprehensive or expensive as full pre-employment screening. A solid volunteer screening package typically includes:

National criminal background check covering all 50 states. This catches criminal records from any state where the volunteer has lived — not just Mississippi.

Sex offender registry check — national. This checks the volunteer against sex offender registries in all states — not just Mississippi.

Child abuse and neglect registry check. As we covered in our previous article this is a completely separate database from criminal records and must be specifically requested. It should be checked for every state where the volunteer has lived.

SSN trace and alias name search. This confirms the volunteer is who they say they are and identifies any alternate names that might be used to hide a criminal history.

These four checks together give you a comprehensive picture of who is volunteering in your facility — and they cost significantly less than a full pre-employment background check.

What About Staffing Agency Employees?

This is a question we hear frequently — if a substitute teacher or contractor comes from a staffing agency is the daycare responsible for screening them?

The honest answer is — it depends on what the staffing agency actually did.

Some staffing agencies run comprehensive background checks on all their placements. Others run only a basic state check. Some run nothing at all and rely entirely on the employer to screen.

Our recommendation is simple. Ask the staffing agency for documentation of exactly what background checks they ran on every individual they send to your facility. If they cannot provide documentation — screen the individual yourself before they interact with children.

When in doubt — screen. The cost of a background check is always less than the cost of a lawsuit.

Building a Consistent Volunteer and Contractor Screening Policy

The most important thing you can do to protect your facility legally and ethically is to have a written screening policy that applies consistently to every adult with regular access to children — regardless of whether they are paid employees volunteers or contractors.

Your written policy should cover:

Who is required to be screened before working or volunteering at your facility — employees volunteers contractors substitutes and drivers.

What screening is required — the specific checks that must be completed before any individual has unsupervised access to children.

How often screening must be renewed — many facilities screen employees annually and volunteers every two to three years.

What happens if a screen returns negative information — your adverse action process and how decisions are communicated.

Who is responsible for managing and tracking screening compliance — a designated staff member or your screening partner.

Having this policy in writing protects you legally and communicates to families that your facility takes child safety seriously.

How TruePath Identity Hub Can Help

TruePath Identity Hub provides volunteer and contractor background checks for Mississippi childcare facilities starting at competitive rates. Every volunteer screening package includes the national criminal check sex offender registry child abuse registry and SSN trace — the four checks that matter most for volunteer safety.

We also provide complete FCRA adverse action documentation for every screening decision — so your facility is legally protected if you ever need to decline a volunteer based on their background check.

And because we are right here in Ridgeland Mississippi — you can call or text us directly with any question about any result. Real local support from someone who answers the phone.

The Bottom Line

If your screening program stops at paid employees you have a gap. Volunteers contractors substitute teachers cleaning crews and transportation drivers all need to be screened before they have regular access to the children in your care.

The question is not whether you can afford to screen volunteers and contractors. The question is whether you can afford not to.

Trusted. Confident. True.

TruePath Identity Hub 1000 Highland Colony Parkway, Building 5000, Suite 5203–9359 Ridgeland, Mississippi 39157 📞 601–605–7396 📧 support@truepathidentity.com 🌐 truepathidentity.com