BACKGROUND CLEARANCES
Background Clearance Instructions for New Coaches
Certain individuals, in order to work or volunteer with children, are required to obtain and submit clearances which may include the following:
Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Clearance;
Pennsylvania State Police Criminal Record Check; and
Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Background Check.
Parents Responsibility
The Kid Safe Program and Criminal Background Check are valuable tools that Horsham Soccer Association and similar organizations use to help protect our children from dangerous people. These tools are not 100% fool proof, however, and are not a guarantee. It remains your responsibility as a parent to supervise your children, to get to know the people working with your children, and to inform the Board of Directors or the Horsham Police if you become aware of any behavior that you believe is inappropriate.
Rules
ll Horsham Soccer Association (club) Board Members, Head Coaches, Assistant Coaches, and other persons working directly with teams or individual players must submit to a Criminal Background Check in addition to the EPYSA Volunteer Disclosure Statement. All perons in the above categories will meet these requirements before being allowed to coach or assume any other responsibilities. Criminal Background Checks will be repeated annually. Volunteers such as parking lot supervisors, snack stand workers, field maintenance workers and those not working directly with children are exempt from these requirements but may meet them voluntarily. The Board of Directors may extend this requirement to any individual or group in the club at any time at their discretion.
Individuals refusing to meet these requirements will be immediately barred from the club.
Individuals whose background check reveals a conviction of any crime involving or against a minor will be immediately barred from the club.
Individuals whose background check reveals convictions of any crime not involving or not against a minor may be barred from the club or from certain activities or responsibilities at the discretion of the Board of Directors.
Any individual barred from the club will be reported to EPYSA and USYSA with the potential of being barred from all USYSA programs across the country.
Individuals who disagree with any decision made by EPYSA or USYSA must appeal the issue directly to that body. Individuals with appeals pending with EPYSA or USYSA are barred from the club until the appeals are resolved to the satisfaction of the Board of Directors.
Individuals who disagree with their criminal background check must appeal this to the company which Horsham Soccer has contracted with to run said Criminal Background Checks. Individuals with appeals pending are barred from the club until the appeals are resolved to the satisfaction of the Board of Directors.
Criminal Background Check
The Criminal Background Check is a powerful tool that checks an individual for criminal convictions at the Federal, State and County levels . Horsham Soccer requires that all board members, head coaches, assistant coaches, and anyone working closely with a team or individual player as part of our organization submit to a Criminal Background Check. This check is mandatory and will be carried out by Horsham Soccer for all volunteers in the above categories.
EPYSA - Kid Safe Program
Horsham Soccer, through Eastern PA Youth Soccer (EPYSA), participates in the Kid Safe program that was introduced in 1994. This program requires all coaches to submit a Volunteer Disclosure Statement to EPYSA. EPYSA performs random criminal background checks and also checks the individual against the US Youth Soccer (USYSA) database. The Kid Safe program is a valuable tool in our effort to maintain a safe environment for our children and we will continue to participate in this program. The EPYSA Volunteer Disclosure Process is available on-line here. You should print out the form once the process is complete. You will also receive an email from EPYSA indicating that you have registered. (You may get an error when trying to register as an Intramural coach. If so register as a Travel coach.)
Requirement
The Board of Directors on 2/7/03 voted unanimously to require that all coaches associated with Horsham Soccer Association must submit to a Criminal Background Check (CBC) in that person’s state of residence. The purpose of this requirement is to protect our children. This requirement is essentially the same as that instituted recently by Little League International for all their local organizations. This is in addition to the Eastern PA Youth Soccer (EPYSA) required Kid Safe Disclosure. The Criminal Background Check is run by Horsham Soccer on all volunteers who apply as coaches or assistant coaches. The separate EPYSA check must be done by every coach or assistant coach on-line at the EPYSA web site, and can be completed in a few minutes. Directions are shown below.