Background Screening in Youth Sports

Volunteer Screening Guidelines

Volunteer screening and in-depth background checks are complex topics that every youth sports organization must address before volunteers are allowed to work with children. The National Alliance for Youth Sports (NAYS) strongly encourages all youth sports organizations to perform background checks on their volunteers as part of the screening process.

NAYS has worked with industry experts to develop background screening guidelines to help youth sports organizations with this process.

Since background checks are just one part of the overall youth sports volunteer screening process, NAYS provides detailed information about the screening process, general guidelines that are important to be aware of and disqualifiers pertaining to youth sports volunteer background checks.

Please be advised these are guidelines and not standards. Each organization must develop their own standards for performing background checks.

Background Screening Guidelines

Partnership with Verified Volunteers

To provide the highest quality and most thorough background screening, NAYS has partnered with an industry leader, Verified Volunteers. This partnership provides NAYS members with an essential service for maintaining a safe environment for everyone involved. Using a combination of proprietary technology and a set of unique criminal locators, Verified Volunteers finds more criminal records at America's county and state courthouses and delivers the most accurate information available about prospective and current volunteers.

MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

NAYS and Verified Volunteers are working on an integrated platform, allowing NAYS Member Organizations to easily have background checks performed on their coaches through the NAYS Coach registration process.

Until our systems are integrated, all interested organizations should reach out to Verified Volunteers by calling Troy Gerber at 646-829-3374 or email at troy@verifiedvolunteers.com to get started today in the Verified Volunteers system.

This partnership is truly a game changer. Here are some additional highlights each NAYS Member Organizations will receive by signing up with Verified Volunteers:

  • Secure and compliant background checks that are housed in a completely secure environment and are fully FCRA compliant.
  • Easy to use system integration which allows the coaches’ profile to include their background check.
  • Outstanding customer service if you have any questions or need assistance.
  • No expensive set up or yearly administrator fees.
  • $15 Advanced Level background checks which includes:
    • Social Security Trace
    • Government Watch List Search (OFAC)
    • 50 State DOJ Sex Offender Registry
    • Nationwide Database Search with primary source validation
    • Automatic current county/state of residence search
    • Monthly updates free of charge for the first year to monitor for new criminal records. (Exclusive to Verified Volunteers)

Request additional information

COACHES

For coaches who have been instructed to run a background check on themselves by their league, please visit the Verified Volunteers portal to get started. Once you have registered for a free account, there are just four easy steps to have a $15 background check performed on yourself and submit back to your league. 

Depending on your location within the United States, there might be an additional fee to properly run a search. A listing of counties and states that charge additional fees can be found here.