All volunteers in the Diocese of Arlington who have substantial contact with youth under the age of 18 much complete the Child Protection Program. All employess in the Diocese of Arlington must also complete this program even if the employee will not have substantial contact with the youth.
Substantial contact is defined as volunteer activities where the adult works in direct contact with youth on a regular and ongoing basis as a part of the ministry or in which there is a potential for contact with youth outside the sight or hearing of other responsible adults.
The Child Protection Program consists of 2 parts. An online background check must be completed prior to volunteering. The online background check application can be found at arlingtondiocese.org. Choose Protecting our Children tab on the home page. Then choose apply online. Complete all information requested. Once complete, choose finish. An email from Docusign will be sent to you to sign the documents. Once signed, the documents will be sent to the Child Protection Liason at St. Joseph Church to review.
The second part is attendance at a Virtus seminar. Seminars can be found at virtus.org. Choose first time registrant, choose view a list of sessions, choose Arlington Diocese. You will need to set up an account and then register for a session that fits your schedule. (At this time ZOOM seminars are also available due to the Corona Virus pandemic.)
If you have any further questions, please contact Beth Covert, Child Protection Liason at St. Joseph Church and School at (703) 880 - 4357 or bcovert@sjcherndon.org.