Government Relations
DID YOU KNOW ? Child Abuse Clearances
The Child Protective Services Law requires certain individuals to obtain clearances if in the course of their employment or volunteer activities they have either direct contact or routine interaction with children . These clearances are required at a minimum of every 60 months from the date of the oldest clearance .
Dentists and office staff who have contact with children need the following three clearances every five years :
• Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Clearance
• Pennsylvania State Police Criminal History Clearance
• Federal Bureau of Investigations ( FBI ) Criminal History Clearance
The question has been raised as to if you need to be fingerprinted each time for the FBI Criminal History Clearance , since fingerprints do not change . The answer is yes . The Commonwealth ’ s vendor for the clearances is Identogo by IDEMIA . IDEMIA does not store applicant ’ s fingerprints ; fingerprints are stored for the purpose of creating the background report and then are wiped . Therefore , an applicant is required to be fingerprinted each time in order to obtain a new FBI clearance .
For more information regarding obtaining a clearance , please visit : https :// www . dhs . pa . gov / KeepKidsSafe / Clearances / Pages / default . aspx .
If you have additional questions , contact the PDA government relations team at ( 800 ) 223-0016 .
MAY / JUNE 2022 | PENNSYLVANIA DENTAL JOURNAL 11