Out of State Child Abuse and Neglect Checks

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About this topic

Child welfare programs are required to check the child abuse and neglect registry in each state where a potential foster parent lived during the past 5 years. This is called the “Adam Walsh check” after the 2006 act that requires it. Programs must do this for anyone else in the home who’s 18 years or older.

Track adoption of these practices on the progress dashboard.

Why this matters

Flaws and inconsistencies in states’ out of state child abuse and neglect check processes are:

  • Putting children at risk. Some states only respond to requests when someone doesn’t pass the background check. This means that foster care programs don’t know if a potential foster parent passed the background check or if the request was simply lost.
  • Causing delays in licensing foster parents. Foster care programs have to decide how long to wait for a potential response to an Adam Walsh check request before proceeding and assuming no response is a good response. While they’re waiting, children need placement.
  • Adding to the financial burden of relatives. Some programs don’t financially support relative placements until they are fully licensed. Delays in out-of-state background checks translate into weeks or months of grandmothers struggling to make ends meet while caring for their grandchildren.

We can eliminate these inefficiencies. But to solve this problem, we need to approach it from both sides — how we fulfill background check requests and how we make these requests.

What we can do

Make it easier for people to request background checks from your state.

Don’t require a witnessed or notarized signature. It’s very difficult for a social worker to gather all household applicants together at one time to visit a notary and/or witness. This step does not provide any safety benefits. The vast majority of states don’t require a notarized signature or a witness.

  • “It was so impossible to get a whole household of adults with different work schedules and who already had kids to meet me half an hour away at the notary, that all of us in the office just became notaries ourselves so we could do it.” —Licensor

Accept requests electronically. Whether you build an online portal or accept email requests, this will allow you to process requests more efficiently.

  • “[State] moved to an electronic request system, which is great. But it only allows one account per child welfare system. Someone else from my state already registered, so now I can’t.” —Licensor

Don’t charge a fee. It’s so difficult for some states to issue a check to another state — even for a few dollars — that many licensing workers report paying these fees out of their own pockets. The vast majority of states don’t charge any fees.

  • “It was so hard to get my office to generate the checks, that we gave up and pay for them out of our office snack fund.” —Licensor

Send inquiries to a general mailbox, not an individual person. If you direct Adam Walsh inquiries to a specific person's desk or email, then when that person is on vacation — or retires — those inquiries will all be lost. Since no response is considered a "clean" check, this creates a real risk of missing known child abusers. Instead, create a general desk/group to process these requests.

Respond to all requests. Without a response, the requestor doesn’t know whether the applicant passed the check or if the request was lost.

Eliminate other burdensome requirements. For example, some states require specific ink colors or typefaces.

  • “In the pandemic, the thing I miss most about the office is access to the typewriter. Without it, I can’t send a typed Adam Walsh form to [State], like they require.” —Licensor
  • “[State] requires typed forms. But their PDF isn’t fillable.” —Licensor
  • “[State] requires you to fill out the form in black ink, but sign it in blue ink, or they send it back. And they DO send it back.” —Licensor
  • “[State’s] requirement for the blue ink and the blank ink means I can’t fax this form to them, either.” —Supervisor

Improve your process for requesting out-of-state background checks.

Collect information early. Ask whether applicants and the other adults in their household lived in other states in the last 5 years as early as possible in the process. For example, if your application process includes a “mini” application or a “pre-application” form, ask there.

Start background checks early. Submit out-of-state requests as early as possible in your process. Review your licensing worker checklists to move this step towards the top of the list.