Churches Vary in Screening Volunteers for Youth Work

Youth ministers and leaders at several South Bay churches say they use a variety of methods for screening volunteer youth counselors. Some conduct informal interviews or require application forms, and some choose only people who are longtime members of their own churches.

At Christ Episcopal Church in Redondo Beach, Father James Newman said even though all the church’s youth volunteers are parents, they are required to complete a form that includes questions about their backgrounds.

“My feeling is the church should ask questions regardless if it’s a parent or not,” Newman said. “Churches need to be proactive in dealing with these issues and shouldn’t have to say, ‘No one ever told us’ ” if negative information is later discovered in a volunteer’s background.

At Lawndale Christian Church, although there is no formal application process, youth volunteers must meet certain requirements, including being a member of the church for at least one year and making a long-term commitment to work with youth, said youth minister Tom Sopp.

Sopp said he usually asks church members to consider volunteering. “I’m really leery when a person comes up and volunteers,” Sopp said. “I think youth ministry just tends to draw unstable people.” Some volunteers may be more concerned about recapturing the spirit of their own youth than helping young people, he said.

“I find out if they themselves need to be ministered to first,” Sopp said. “A lot of people carry emotional baggage from their own youth and express it among the kids. That may not be too healthy.”

Craig Cooper, youth pastor at Community Baptist Church in Manhattan Beach, said he gives a list of goals and expectations to youth volunteers and asks them to pray over it for a week and submit a written response. Then each volunteer is interviewed.

“I ask them, ‘Are there going to be any surprises?’ ” Cooper said. “I ask if there is anything in their background we should know about.”

Matt Caddell, youth minister at Calvary Baptist Church in Gardena, said most of the 12 youth counselors he supervises are longtime church members whose families have belonged to the church for years.

But the question of volunteers’ backgrounds has come up increasingly in the last six months at Calvary, including more thorough background checks and fingerprinting, Caddell said.

“Churches can be sued just like anyone else, and I think churches should be aware of that,” he said.

Stricter screening of volunteer youth counselors may become the norm, some ministers and church workers said.

“It seems like, more and more, you have to screen people, especially in urban areas,” Sopp said.

However, at the Church of Religious Science in Redondo Beach, Geri Tabor, director of youth services, said volunteer counselors may begin working with youths as soon as they have enrolled in a church-sponsored teaching course.

“If people really care and are interested, anyone can teach as far as we’re concerned,” Tabor said.