Updated DBS Guidance for Faith Organisations and Charities
Faith charities and organisations are frequented by people from all aspects of society regardless of circumstances. This means staff and volunteers within these institutions can often be engaging with children, young people and vulnerable adults. Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Checks are available to faith organisations to ensure that their potential employees or volunteers are suitable for working with and caring for these demographics.
Eligibility for DBS Checks is one of the more complicated aspects of background screening legislation. Many faith organisations and charities don’t have the resources to be able to dedicate a member of staff to deciphering the word of law. Fortunately, the DBS has recently completed a piece of work alongside Strengthening Faith Institutions (SFI) and the Charity Commission to produce new faith-specific guidance for DBS Eligibility.
The new guidance has been reviewed extensively by major organisations from the following faiths:
Islam
Judaism
Sikhism
Christianity
Hinduism
Buddhism
By consulting with these groups, the DBS has been able to produce guidance that reflects how faith groups interact with their communities. This means the updated eligibility guidance is more focused and relevant. In general, employees and volunteers would require one of two checks. This would either be an Enhanced DBS Check (which are discounted for volunteers) or a Basic DBS Check.
Anyone in the UK can have a Basic DBS Check carried out on them, as there are no eligibility criteria associated with this level of check. The eligibility for the Enhanced DBS Check is quite extensive.
Enhanced DBS Eligibility
To be eligible for an Enhanced DBS Check, those employed or volunteering within faith groups must be carrying out some kind of ‘regulated activity'. In faith organisations, the types of regulated activity most commonly encountered would be:
When Working with Children
teaching, training or instructing children
care and supervision of children
providing advice and guidance wholly or mainly to children in relation to their emotional, physical or educational wellbeing – e.g. advice on staying healthy while fasting, educational advice when considering a life of faith or emotional guidance when going through difficult times in life such as bereavement.
driving children
day to day management of people undertaking these activities
When Working with Adults
assistance, advice or guidance wholly or mainly for certain adults (for example, a support group for people dealing with illness)
conveying certain adults to and from the faith centre (for example, driving a minibus on behalf of the faith centre to enable people who would otherwise not be able to attend due to age, illness or disability)
day-to-day management of people undertaking these activities
Providing personal care made up of physical assistance or prompting and then supervising with eating, drinking, toileting, washing for adults who can’t decide to do this for themselves because of age, illness or disability
Conveying adults to, from or between health care, personal care and/or social work services who can’t convey themselves because of their age, illness or disability
Assisting an adult who can’t manage with the day-to-day running of their household relating to managing the adult’s cash, paying the adult’s bills or doing their shopping because of their age, illness or disability
This is general guidance and should not be considered comprehensive as each situation is dependent on individual circumstances. SFI has categorised faith specific guidance, covering all the typical roles found within faith organisations and charities. This can be found here.
For more information about how Personnel Checks can help implement a compliant DBS checking process in your faith organisation, get in touch! Give our expert advisors a call on 01254 355688 or drop us an email at letstalk@personnelchecks.co.uk