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Step 1 of 3

What this actually takes.

Two background checks. You need both. One of them costs you nothing and takes weeks; the other costs you about sixty dollars and takes a day. That is the whole of it, and it is on this screen before you type anything, because finding it out halfway through is how we lose people who should be here.

  1. Track 1 of 2 · Required

    The juvenile justice agency clears you.

    What you do
    Go to the juvenile justice agency for your state — the Department of Juvenile Justice in Florida, Cook County Juvenile Probation in Illinois — apply to volunteer through their own process, and get fingerprinted. In person.
    What it costs you
    Nothing. The agency pays for it.
    How long
    Four to eight weeks, usually. Most of that is the agency's queue and none of it is in our hands.
    How long it then lasts
    A clearance like this usually stands for about five years, and we will confirm the actual date with the agency and put it on your page rather than guessing at it. If we do not have a date, your page says so instead of pretending.
    Why it cannot be skipped
    This is the one that gets you through the door of a detention centre. Nothing we buy can stand in for it and we will not pretend otherwise.

    Read the protocol sheet for this one

  2. Track 2 of 2 · Also required

    A Checkr background check, which you pay for.

    What you do
    Fill in a form from Checkr, online, about ten minutes. It asks for your address history and the last four digits of your social security number. That goes to Checkr and never to us.
    What it costs you
    $26, and you pay it to us. Checkr has no way to bill you directly, so we collect the fee and then send you the invitation. Nothing is asked for now: you pay after you have read the covenant and decided this is you. If sixty dollars is the thing stopping you, say so — it is waivable and we would rather waive it than lose you.
    How long
    Usually the same day.
    Why both
    A Florida fingerprint check is very good at Florida and thin on county records anywhere else. If you have lived in another state, this is the one that looks there.

    Read the protocol sheet for this one

Both of these are written out step by step on a sheet you can print, and you do not have to apply to read them. Start with the first one: it is the one that matters and it is the one people leave too late.

So, in plain numbers: about $26 out of your pocket, one trip in person to a juvenile justice office, four to eight weeks of waiting, roughly half an hour of documents, and then two to four hours a week for a year. That is the real commitment. Decide now rather than in three weeks.

I am in. Take me to the form.

Step 2 of 3

Tell us who you are.

Six things, about three minutes, on a phone. No account and no payment on this page: nothing is asked of you for money until you have read the covenant and decided this is you.

About you

Your documents and your clearance instructions come here, and it is where you send the clearance back to us. Use an address you actually read.

So a person here can ring you rather than emailing you a fourth time.

This is how we work out which agency screens volunteers where you are, and the answer is different in Miami-Dade and in Cook County. If you are not sure, put the nearest city and we will work it out and tell you.

Your address — optional now, and it saves you a wasted trip later

The agency that clears you will ask for one at the counter, and a mismatch between the name and address you give them and the ones on your identification is the usual reason a clearance has to be done twice.

What you would like to do

Tick as many as you like, or none if you are not sure. Every one of these goes through the same vetting and the same background check, so picking more than one does not make it longer.

Where and when

Anything else you want us to know — all optional

What you do, who you have worked with, why you want to do this. Nobody outside the program reads it.

Four more things, if you want the detail

None of this is a surprise waiting to happen. It is the same four things a person here would tell you on the phone, written down so you can read them at your own speed.

You go through an agency's own volunteer process, and we check with them.

That is track one, and Defining Narratives does not run it. We do not order a fingerprint check about you, we are never sent your record, and we do not want it. You go to the agency that already screens the adults around these young people, tell them you want to volunteer, go through their process, and then show us that you are cleared. Where you are, that is a specific agency at a specific counter, and we email you exactly where to go, what to say and what to bring back on the day you apply, not three weeks later.

Where the agency screens its own volunteers, the agency pays and there is nothing for you to pay. That is the usual case and it is the reason we do it this way. Where there is no agency route where you are, you get your own and you pay for it: we do not pay it and do not reimburse it, and we would rather say that on this page than after you have signed nine documents. If you already hold a current screening through your job with young people, bring that instead and we will not ask you to do it twice.

Sending us the confirmation is not the end of it. Before you are placed with a young person, somebody here rings the agency and confirms it with a named person there, because anything you send us reached us through you. That is not about you: it is what we would want somebody to do before leaving any adult alone with our own child. It is also why one of the documents asks your permission to contact them.

What we end up holding is that you have a clearance, who issued it, what it permits, how we checked it, and when it runs out. Your criminal history is never requested, never received and never stored here. Nor is anything the Checkr report says: we keep the words "clear" or "needs a look" and nothing else, and the report itself stays with Checkr. If an agency does not clear you, that decision is theirs, they do not tell us why, we do not ask, and no reason is ever written down here.

There are documents to sign, and one of them is not paperwork.

The volunteer covenant comes first and on its own. It says plainly what this organization is and what is asked of an adult who sits with a young person, and it is the one to say no to if it is not you. Everything after it is ordinary: the code of conduct, your agreement to obtain and show us a background clearance, confidentiality, a liability release, who to ring in an emergency, whether we may photograph you, anything that could look like a conflict of interest, and the volunteer agreement. Only people who will drive a young person are asked for a driver authorization on top.

That is a longer list than most people expect and it is the list a nonprofit working with young people is expected to hold. Together they take about half an hour, each one is separate and dated, they can be done on a phone, and you can read any of them again at any time on your own volunteer page.

This is a Christian organization, and we would rather you knew now.

It is what the work is built on and volunteers are asked to live consistently with what they are teaching, in private as well as in public. The covenant sets that out honestly rather than as a checklist. No young person and no family is ever asked what they believe, and nothing about their faith or lack of it changes one thing about what they receive here.

The commitment is real.

Roughly two to four hours a week and a term of twelve months. A mentoring cohort runs twenty three weeks, and a mentor who starts one is asked to see it out. Other roles are shift by shift with no minimum. Turning up unpredictably does more damage than never turning up at all, which is the honest reason we ask.

Questions, or something has changed: [email protected]. If it is urgent, call (305) 608-0517.