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Criminal Record Checks
Are you a Home Sharing Provider who needs a Criminal Record Check for your Respite Provider?
The HSSSBC can help make the process easier. If you are home sharing provider your Respite Providers can have them contact us to have their Criminal Record Checks processed through the HSSSBC. This will eliminate the need for you as an HSP to register with the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General (PSSG) to process them yourself. A Respite Provider will be given access to the portal to request their Criminal Record Check online and pay the fee. Once received we will pass it on to you.
The Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General (PSSG) is responsible for the Criminal Record Check Program (CRRP), and for the process used to submit requests for criminal record checks for anyone working with vulnerable adults or children in B.C.
Why does CLBC require criminal record checks?
It is in the law in B.C. that any person prior to volunteering or working with vulnerable adults under a contracted arrangement (e.g., Home Sharing) completes a criminal record check through the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General’s (PSSG) Criminal Records Review Program. All individuals CLBC supports are considered ‘vulnerable adults’ under the Criminal Records Review Act, PSSG’s legislation that requires criminal record checks. Criminal record checks help protect vulnerable adults from financial, physical, or sexual abuse, by ensuring the people working with them do not pose a risk.
What does the Criminal Records Review Act check look for?
A person’s criminal record history is reviewed against the list of relevant/specified offences set in Schedules 1 and 3 the Act. For the list of the relevant/specified offences see: http://www.pssg.gov.bc.ca/criminal-records-review/offences-reviewed/index.htm
What happens if a record is found through a criminal record check by PSSG’s Criminal Records Review Program?
Please refer to PSSG’s process for adjudication here on their Criminal record check results and reconsiderations – Province of British Columbia (gov.bc.ca) https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/crime-prevention/criminal-record-check/results-and-reconsiderations
Who is required to get a Police Information Check with Vulnerable Sector Screening?
For any adults 18 years old and over living with a vulnerable adult (e.g., in a home of a Home Sharing Provider or wellness support provider), CLBC requires a Police Information Check with Vulnerable Sector Screening completed through their local police department. PSSG’s criminal record check process does not apply because they are not employees/contractors.
Criminal Record Check: A criminal record check refers to the legislative requirement set out in the Criminal Records Review Act which involves a search of police records against a list of “specified or relevant offences”. This list is set out in Schedules (1 and 3) to the Criminal Records Review Act and is designed to capture offenses related to physical, sexual or financial abuse of vulnerable adults.
Criminal record checks are run through the Canadian Police Information Centre, Police Records Information Management Environment (the province’s local police database) and the BC Corrections database only returning records related to these listed offences.
Checks are also informed by a search of law enforcement databases, in collaboration with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Criminal Records Review Unit, which returns all information related to the Act’s listed offences, including non-conviction information (e.g. outstanding charges, convictions, criminal investigations as well as incidents that did not result in a charge or conviction) that the RCMP unit assesses as indicative of a likely public safety risk when working with vulnerable adults.