Legal and Ethical Issues in Early Childhood

From: Celia Farr
Email: celia@childrensharbor.cc;ctaylorfarr@yahoo.com
Date: May 24, 2007

Comments

Holly, What a pleasure to interact with you and the other dedicated educators participating in this discussion. I'm a Community Trainer and Professional Development Director in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As a former director, it was very difficult and frustrating trying to get a true gauge of a person's work history through references. It was a difficult process getting people hired due to that company's requirements. As others have stated, we're required by our State licensing to have three references on file. The organization I worked for at the time only gave dates and position. Yet, they required that two references must answer specific questions, i.e. "Would you hire this person to care for a child? Why or Why not?" They would only accept one reference out of the three with dates of hire and position.

In my current position, we do not do verbal references at all. The request for information must be in writing and the information given is limited to position and dates of employment. However, I do know that my CEO spoke with my past employers prior to offering employment to me.