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Mobile Fingerprinting Helps Schools, Businesses Meet Background Check Requirements

Posted on May 26, 2015

Johnstown, PA (May 26, 2015) – New, stricter guidelines for child protection clearances in Pennsylvania require anyone having direct contact or routine interaction with children to undergo a fingerprint-based FBI criminal history record check. The law applies not only to schools and child care facilities, but will affect everything from church youth groups to dentists’ and doctors’ offices—anywhere adults work with children, even for short periods.

“The law is designed to close gaps in identifying individuals with a history of hurting children, and that is undeniably a good thing,” said Kayla Cobaugh, Human Resources Manager at The Learning Lamp. “But the expanded demand for clearances since the start of the year was more than the state could handle, and for our organization, that resulted in lengthy delays in start dates of staff.”

At one point, the backlog was 26 days when the law required a turnaround of four days, according to a May 5 report on Philly.com. A handful of stationary fingerprint locations are available locally, but most have restricted hours or require appointments.

fingerprint photoIn an effort keep kids safe and better support schools, child care centers and other groups in complying with Pennsylvania law, The Learning Lamp has launched a new Mobile Fingerprinting Service. A trained technician uses live scanning technology to capture fingerprints and electronically transfers the images to the FBI in a matter of seconds. A record check that could have taken days or weeks to schedule and process is completed on-site efficiently and conveniently for businesses and their employees.

In order to be fingerprinted, employees must first register online at www.pa.cogentid.com. Any individual to be fingerprinted must produce a Cogent registration number and present a qualified State or Federal photo ID. For more information about The Learning Lamp’s Mobile Fingerprinting Service, call 814.262.0732. An affordable daily rate for on-site fingerprinting applies. A discounted rate is available for groups who register in advance for multiple days.

The Learning Lamp is a nonprofit organization with a mission to engage all children in the support they need to succeed. We deliver high quality programs that are affordable and accessible to families of all income levels. The Learning Lamp served 19,748 children from 88 school districts and 46 non-public and private schools and other organizations in 18 Pennsylvania counties and two counties in Maryland in 2014.

Our programs include: one-to-one tutoring; before/after school programs; portable classrooms aimed at building math and science skills; alternative education programs for at-risk students; evidence-based prevention programs; online learning and credit recovery; SAT preparation; educationally-focused child care; literacy-based preschool programs; and grant writing and project consulting for schools.

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