Florida Catholic | Editorial

DCF lags on employee background checks

Published: 02.15.08

One child victimized is one child too many. We hope and pray for the day when abuse of minors is gone — from the church, from families, from schools and from public agencies.

How is it that the Catholic dioceses in Florida — and all around the United States — are years ahead of the Florida Department of Children and Families on background checks for their employees? After all, DCF is the state entity that oversees adoptions and foster care, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, abuse and neglect investigations and prevention, programs to strengthen families and assistance to other vulnerable populations.

The top DCF spokesman, Al Zimmerman, was not fingerprinted, nor was a background check run on him before he was hired in 2005. In fact, the only thing on file for him is a résumé, not even the required (at that time) state application. Zimmerman was arrested last week on eight counts of offering teens money for allowing him to photograph them. One of the teens was in DCF custody. A policy change requiring employees at Zimmerman’s level to be fingerprinted and have a thorough background check was not implemented until November 2006.

Why did it take so long? DCF received a report in 2004 urging there needed to be better background checks and training within families with which the agency worked. Why wouldn’t the agency require the same for its 13,000-plus employees?

According to the Orlando Sentinel, an investigation after Zimmerman’s recent arrest showed he had charges for drunken driving and an outstanding arrest warrant for grand theft in Texas, which stems from a charge of writing bad checks.

However, DCF never knew about this before it hired him because the agency wasn’t running background checks on every employee at the time.

Contrast that to the Catholic dioceses in Florida, which since the passage of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, have been fingerprinting and running background checks on every employee — including priests, religious and laity — and volunteers who work with children and vulnerable adults. As of May 2007, the Archdiocese of Miami alone had fingerprinted and done background checks on nearly 20,000 people; and more than 16,000 have attended Virtus training, designed to help families, employees and volunteers recognize and prevent abusive behavior.

If the sexual abuse crisis in the church has done any good, it has made us more aware of the failings of the past and made the church more accountable for them. Bishops and diocesan leaders have established review boards and hired victim assistance coordinators and encouraged victims to come forward to report any allegations of misconduct both to the church and to civil authorities. Counseling is offered to victims, even while allegations are investigated and substantiated.

Most importantly, background checks have been implemented at every level of church ministry. While no system is completely secure, the fingerprinting and checks with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and FBI help to ensure that those in contact with vulnerable populations have been properly screened.

Surprising is that although some organizations have studied these programs, not enough have implemented them. Too many public schools and government agencies still have very little in place to protect their vulnerable populations. And their victims are limited in recourse, because many public agencies cannot be sued, or have caps on what can be paid for counseling or in civil suits.

DCF needs to own up to its failings in not having implemented employee background checks in a timely manner. It could well have learned from the experience of the last half-decade of the Catholic Church. It is sad that it did not.

One child victimized is one child too many. We hope and pray for the day when abuse of minors is gone — from the church, from families, from schools and from public agencies.

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