Is It Worth Conducting a Background Check on Your Elderly Caregiver and/or Nanny?
When searching for someone to take care of your children, elders, or the mentally ill, it is crucial to get a background check. Caregivers are typically hired from either a service that provides caregivers or based on personal recommendations.
Though word of mouth, good references, and interviews are all critical to the hiring process, a background check can help shed light on any red flags that could be in their past.
Why Should You Run a Background Check?
Hiring a caregiver is a big decision. It can give people peace of mind that their loved ones are safe while they aren’t around. Background checks can help parents and family members keep peace of mind that their loved one is safe with the person they hired.
A background check should be seen as a preventative measure because it makes the parent or guardian better informed about the person who will be caring for their family. This is especially important with children, senior citizens and the mentally ill because they’re most vulnerable to abuse and neglect and cannot always communicate what has happened effectively.
Though background checks are not 100% reliable, they can help confirm that the caregiver is exactly who they say they are and identify most red flags. This is especially true when gathering the necessary general information on a potential caregiver.
When shopping for a car, one does a lot of research on its safety, mileage, and other essential features; getting a background check for a loved one is no different.
What Does a Background Check Entail?
When shopping for a background check provider, it is important to avoid any website that claims to give “instant results.” These sites tend to have issues with their results including the fact they can miss up to half the felonies and misdemeanors and give you the wrong persons’ results if they share the same last name.
To get a comprehensive background check you must have known personal identifiers for the potential caregiver. This information includes their full name, DOB, last known address, email, cell phone number and can consist of their consent for the background check to be run.
Background checks will search for criminal records, education verification, certifications on resumes, previous employment, driving records, and credit checks in some very specific instances. This level of research will confirm if there are any red flags in the potential caregiver’s background.
Examples of red flags include:
– If the caregiver has a record of restraining orders from previous families they have worked for
– Charges or reports of elder or child neglect
– Liens and Judgements could be a sign of someone with financial problems who may be more likely to steal
Background Checks and Elder Care in Georgia
Effective October 2019, The Georgia Long-Term Care Background Check Program law now requires caregivers who want to work with seniors to undergo national background checks. In January 2021, a fingerprint requirement also took effect. This legislation was passed due to investigators at the Georgia Bureau of Investigations finding that elder abuse and abuse of adults with disabilities had increased 145 percent over the past five years.
According to the National Institute on Aging, as many as one in 10 Americans over the age of 60 are abused physically, emotionally, financially, or otherwise. By performing a background check on your loved one’s potential caregiver, you can help mitigate that risk.
For more information, contact CGA Solutions today to schedule a free consultation for our child and elderly caregiver background check service
