For Family Friends and Host Homes, three independent references are needed as part of our Safer Recruitment Process (one for an Approved Resource Friends) and have a twofold purpose:
- To gain understanding about the volunteer’s suitability and to flag up issues for us to consider at approval panel or for matching purposes.
- To ensure the applicant is who they say they are and are not supplying their own references
It is important that references are gathered quickly and do not become a barrier to approval, so the CVM has a responsibility to be diligent in chasing up references.
What is the process for collecting references?
- Referees that are entered on an online application form will appear automatically in the volunteer’s database record and when an email address has been entered for the referee, the referee will be sent a reference request automatically.
- Details on paper application forms must be inputted manually and the database can then be used to send the reference request email to referees.
- If referees’ details have not been provided, the CVM needs to follow up with the volunteer for the necessary information.
- Outstanding References will automatically be resent by the database twice at two-week intervals. The ‘Date Last Sent’ will be updated against each reference and a note added to the volunteer record each time.
- Referees should be followed up a further time (totalling 6 weeks of time for requests). A phone call or text to the referee can often speed up the process and is advised after the automatic requests have stopped being sent after 4 weeks. The volunteer can also be asked to prompt the referee to help speed up the process.
- Alternatively, a phone reference can be taken by a CVM. The CVM must record the reference verbatim and ask for explicit permission from the referee to sign the reference on their behalf and this should be noted on the form.
- Should all else fail, the CVM should ask the applicant to provide an alternative referee.
- At least one of the three referees must be contacted directly by phone to verify their identity and the validity of their reference. An exception to this rule can be made if one of the referees is known to the CVT and their reference can be verified; an example is a church minister with whom we have a relationship.