Mentoring organizations to receive help keeping youth safe
Sebelius and Snyder announce state support for records check

Ensuring the safety of children who take part in mentoring efforts is critical, which is why many mentoring organizations conduct background checks on potential mentors.

Now, as part of the Kansas Mentors initiative launched by Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Coach Bill Snyder, mentoring organizations will be able to conduct background checks at a discounted rate.

“Matching up children and suitable mentors is a key concern for mentoring programs and records checks are an important component of the process. Giving mentoring organizations access to these checks will help ensure the safety of children being mentored, and give moms and dads peace of mind,” said Sebelius.

Mentoring organizations will have the opportunity to access national records through the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).   To take advantage of this new savings effort, mentoring organizations will need to contact their local law enforcement agency to collect fingerprints from a potential mentor.  Fingerprints will then be sent to the Kansas Highway Patrol, which in coordination with the KBI, will request a national records check through the FBI database.   

Normally these limited national records checks would cost $38 each.  But thanks to legislative support for the Governor’s Kansas Mentors initiative, these background checks will now cost mentoring groups less than $20 each.

“I am grateful to the Legislature, the Highway Patrol and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for all coming together with Governor Sebelius and the Mentoring Council to support this additional level of security for our children,” Snyder said. “We owe it to the youth in our state to be able to provide them with a safe mentor and a quality experience.”

Kansas Mentors is not a mentoring program, rather it is an initiative designed to connect existing mentoring programs with each other and serve as a resource center for communities wishing to start a program.

The purpose of Kansas Mentors is to promote the great mentoring opportunities in Kansas and find ways to recruit more Kansans to be a part of these efforts. All children deserve a caring adult role model in their lives to support and guide them; our mission is to help make this a reality.

For more information on Kansas Mentors, visit http://www.ksmentors.ks.gov/

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