Volunteer Background Check
Requirements by State

California requires DOJ fingerprint checks for regular volunteers of youth service organizations under AB 506 — adults with more than 16 hours a month or 32 hours a year of direct contact with, or supervision of, children — and CDSS clearances for volunteers with client contact in licensed child care, community care and elder care facilities, with narrow exemptions. The DOJ’s CalVECHS program lets qualified entities authorized under Penal Code § 11105.3 — public, private, for-profit or nonprofit — receive state and unsanitized federal records. Not all volunteer roles are covered — requirements hinge on contact frequency, sector, and whether the organization is licensed or a youth-serving entity under the Business and Professions Code.

Florida has no blanket volunteer screening mandate, but its statutes route specific volunteer roles into a two-tier system written into law: Level 1 (employment history, a name-based FDLE check and the national sex-offender website) and Level 2 (FDLE and FBI fingerprints plus the sex-offender registries of every state lived in during the prior five years). Child care, summer camp, juvenile justice, disability-services, elder-services and guardian ad litem volunteers are covered, with narrow hours-and-supervision exceptions. Volunteer coaches, managers and referees under independent sanctioning authorities moved to Level 2 on July 1, 2026. Nonprofits serving children, the elderly or people with disabilities can reach state and FBI checks through FDLE's VECHS program for roles no other statute already covers.