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NYS Comprehensive Background Checks
Important Information
The Facility Application and Management System (FAMS) now allows providers to complete and submit comprehensive online background checks for all employees/ volunteers/ household members!
All providers received an email invitation from OCFS on May 15, 2023, to access the OCFS Facility Application and Management System (FAMS). The email has the subject line "Child Care Background Check Processing through the OCFS Facility Application and Management System (FAMS)". If you are unable to find the email first, please check your spam/junk folder, then contact your regulator for assistance. For more information, training, and other resources go to the CCDBG: Training, Resource, and Information Center.
As required by the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) and New York State Social Services Law, new comprehensive background checks became effective on September 25, 2019.
Background check requirements include:
- NYS criminal history check
- FBI criminal history check
- NYS Child abuse and maltreatment registry screening
- NYS Sex Offender registry check
- National Crime and Information Center-National Sex Offender Registry Check
In addition, for any individual who resides or resided in another state in the prior 5 years, the following checks must be done against that state(s):
- Criminal history repository
- Child abuse and maltreatment registry
- Sex Offender registry
All operators, employees, and volunteers in licensed/registered child care programs are now subject to these provisions, including household members 18 years of age or older in family and group family child care programs. All legally exempt group program directors, employees and volunteers are also subject to these provisions. Further, any non-relative provider, employee and volunteer in a legally exempt in-home child care setting is subject to the above background checks. Any non-relative provider, employee, volunteer and adult household member, unless such household member is related in any way to all children in care, in a legally exempt family child care setting is also subject to the above background check. These background checks do not apply to any individual in legally exempt relative-only in-home child care or relative-only family child care.
Prospective individuals must be cleared at the time of application/enrollment. Individuals that were existing in their roles prior to September 25, 2019 must be screened against these new requirements. Once individuals complete the comprehensive background checks required under CCCDBG and they are approved for their roles, the approval is valid for up to 5 years unless there is a break in service from working in any program for more than 180 days. This approval is also contingent upon the fact that no new issues emerge in an individual’s background check that requires OCFS intervention or assessment. In addition these requirements now have mandatory disqualifying offenses.
To initiate the comprehensive background check process, individuals must follow the instructions on the OCFS-4930 form to schedule a fingerprinting appointment and also submit a completed OCFS-6000 packet to their program’s provider/director. For staff who have been fingerprinted for day care, you will complete the Request for a Waiver.
On February 7, 2020, OCFS adopted new regulations that allow new and prospective staff and volunteers as well as household members 18 years or older in a licensed or registered child care program to begin working or residing in the child care program under supervision as long as their medical form OCFS-6004 has been submitted to the provider or director. The remaining documentation from the OCFS-6000 packet must also be submitted in order for the staff/volunteers to be fully approved in their roles.
In brief, the new rules require:
- All new (prospective) individuals individuals at licensed, registered and legally-exempt programs must complete the entire background check process. Employees may begin working in a child care program on a supervised basis only after a background check and the OCFS-6004. Such employees must be supervised at all times and must never be alone with children.
- All existing individuals who have not had a comprehensive background check completed since September 25, 2019 must schedule an appointment for criminal history fingerprinting.
View the presentation on Updated Comprehensive Background Checks as federally mandated in the Child Care Development Block Grant Act of 2014 (CCDBG).