Volunteers Working With Vulnerable Populations: The Screening and Supervision Standard That Protects Everyone
A volunteer visits a homebound older woman with dementia every week. One afternoon, the woman accuses the volunteer of hitting her. Whether the accusation becomes a claim, and whether the volunteer can defend against it, depends on what the organization did before the first visit and what it recorded after each one.
Before the first visit, meeting your organization’s duty of care means screening matched to the access the role provides. After each visit, it means supervision that keeps the volunteer’s work visible. If an allegation reaches a volunteer anyway, volunteer liability insurance pays for his or her legal defense.
Why Vulnerable Populations Raise the Standard of Care
Vulnerable people are those who may be less able to protect themselves or report harm, such as children, older persons with cognitive impairment, and people with disabilities. Your organization owes them a duty of care: the legal obligation to act as a reasonable, prudent organization would to prevent foreseeable harm.
When a client can’t protect himself or herself or describe what happened, harm becomes more foreseeable. Because the duty of care requires planning for foreseeable harm, your organization needs stronger screening before a volunteer starts and closer supervision after.
A client’s cognitive impairment also puts the volunteer at risk. A client with dementia may not remember events accurately and might falsely accuse a volunteer of assault or theft. The standard your organization sets has to protect the client from harm and give the volunteer a way to document his or her conduct.
Protection starts with deciding who gets the role.
Screening Matched to the Access a Role Provides
Screening covers more than a background check. It includes the application, an interview, reference checks, and the background check itself. A volunteer who clears the background check hasn’t finished screening until the other three pieces are complete.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists screening and selecting volunteers as the first of six components for preventing abuse in youth-serving organizations, so screening is where the standard starts, not where it ends. The CDC developed the framework for youth programs, but its structure also serves as a useful model for programs serving vulnerable adults.
How much screening a role needs depends on how close it brings a volunteer to a client. A volunteer has more opportunity to cause harm when he or she spends time alone with a client, enters a client’s home, provides personal care or physical assistance, or handles a client’s money or personal information.
In those roles, a missed warning sign in a volunteer’s history puts the client at greater risk of harm and gives an injured client grounds to claim your organization screened carelessly. Documenting each check demonstrates due diligence, which can reduce the risk of that claim succeeding. A role-by-role screening framework helps you decide which checks each position needs.
Whatever checks a role requires, federal and state laws govern how organizations obtain and use background information on volunteers. A misstep with those rules creates legal exposure of its own, so VIS recommends relying on a professional screening firm.
VIS partner Sure Check fills that role for members, who receive 10% off volunteer screening. Sure Check returns reports within eight hours on average nationwide, so a thorough check doesn’t have to delay a volunteer’s start date.
Of course, a person with a clean record can still commit a crime, so supervision must cover the remainder of a volunteer’s service.
Supervision That Protects Clients and Volunteers Alike
The other five components cover the period after screening: guidelines on interactions, monitoring behavior, safe environments, responses to concerns and allegations, and training.
Each component either limits the opportunity for harm, which keeps the client safe, or reduces doubt about events, which helps the volunteer if someone questions his or her conduct later. In practice, those components translate into five steps.
- Written procedures: Consistent rules for working with clients keep volunteers’ conduct predictable and discourage people with malicious intent from applying.
- Supervisor approval for new requests: When a client asks for help outside the volunteer’s role, the volunteer checks with the supervisor first, which keeps the volunteer’s duties within what his or her screening covered.
- Client check-ins: A supervisor who talks with the client periodically confirms the client is satisfied and learns about concerns before they grow into complaints.
- Visit records: A log of each visit’s date, time, and tasks gives the organization a factual account if questions arise later.
- A reporting chain: Volunteers report concerns, complaints, and injuries to their supervisor, so the organization learns about problems early and responds consistently. The chain has to comply with your state’s mandated reporting laws.
In the opening example, the visit records and the supervisor’s check-ins give the accused volunteer facts to point to, including whether the client raised concerns before. Without those records, the case comes down to the client’s account against the volunteer’s.
Even a program that meets its duty of care can face an allegation, so the next question is what happens when one reaches a volunteer.
What Volunteer Liability Insurance Does When a Volunteer Faces an Allegation
Volunteer liability insurance responds to allegations of bodily injury or property damage made against volunteers. The VIS policy carries limits up to $1 million.
It also provides a legal defense for a volunteer accused of assault, including sexual abuse or misconduct. The volunteer in the opening example, accused of hitting a client, would have that defense unless he or she admitted guilt or a court found him or her guilty.
Once an allegation surfaces, a clear response procedure and separate coverage for volunteers support both the volunteer and your organization, because a separate policy keeps volunteer claims from drawing on your organization’s own liability limits.
The standard protects everyone only if you can show you followed it.
Putting the Standard in Writing
Document each part: screening requirements by role, supervision procedures, the reporting chain, and visit records. Review them whenever a role changes or your program begins serving a new population, because either change can alter how much access a volunteer has.
For training material that supports those procedures, VIS members enjoy 24/7 access to the “VIS Vault” of risk management resources, including dozens of “Preventer Papers” addressing injury prevention and vehicle safety. For details about the specialized volunteer insurance VIS offers, click the “VIS is…” tab at the top of the page and scroll down to the FAQ section, or call 800.222.8920.
FAQ on Vulnerable Populations
Are volunteers mandated reporters?
It depends on the state and the role. Every state identifies in statute who must report suspected child abuse or neglect, and some states require any person to report. Train volunteers on your state’s rules, and ensure your internal reporting chain never delays a required report.
Should volunteers who work with vulnerable populations be rescreened?
A screening reflects a volunteer’s record on the day it runs, so a charge filed after that date won’t appear until you check again. Organizations can rescreen at set intervals or use continuous monitoring, which Sure Check offers through monthly checks for longer-term volunteers. For volunteers who drive clients, which puts them alone with a client, VIS recommends checking motor vehicle records at least once a year.
About the Author
William R. Henry, Jr. is Vice President and Director of Member Benefits at Volunteers Insurance Service Association, Inc. (VIS), where he leads membership development and delivers risk management solutions tailored to volunteer-based organizations nationwide. A recognized authority on volunteer risk management, he is a frequent speaker and author on best practices for safe and effective volunteer engagement. He is accredited by the International Association of Business Communicators. With a background in communications, journalism, and public affairs, Henry brings a strategic perspective to supporting nonprofit organizations across the United States.
About VIS
Volunteers Insurance Service Association, Inc. (VIS) is a membership organization serving more than 3,500 volunteer-based nonprofit organizations and public entities nationwide. VIS is the only association that offers these three insurance programs designed specifically for volunteers: volunteer accident, volunteer liability, and volunteer excess automobile liability.
If you are interested in protecting your volunteers through the unique VIS insurance program, please click on the “Get volunteer insurance now” link on the home page, or call 800.222.8920. For more information on VIS’s risk-management resources for members and our vendor partners, click on the “Member Benefits” tab.
