ICPC information for organisations

Can you afford to take the risk?

You can’t tell by looking if one of your employees or volunteers has a sexual interest in children. Yet as an organisation, you can take steps to help safeguard the children in your care.

The International Child Protection Certificate (ICPC) is a criminal records check for UK nationals or anyone who has previously lived in the UK, who wants to work with children overseas.

It’ll confirm whether or not the applicant has a criminal history and provide details, including relevant conviction and non-conviction data; giving you confidence that your employee or volunteer is not a potential risk to children.

Seeing the bigger picture

More than 60,000 ICPCs have been supplied to applicants who have gained employment in organisations across the world.

In using the ICPC, you will be able to see the bigger picture about potential employees or volunteers; helping to play a pivotal role in protecting children in your care from offenders who travel overseas to sexually abuse vulnerable children.

You’ll become one of a growing number of organisations who use the ICPC as a robust vetting tool. The product is used by more than 1,600 registered organisations in 89 countries around the world; ensuring that safeguarding is placed at the heart of recruitment decisions.

It enables organisations to make informed risk-based decisions about an individual’s suitability to work with children; whether it is a future employee, a volunteer or existing staff members.

As an employer, you may wish to consider making the ICPC part of your pre-employment checks; mandating that individuals obtain a certificate before taking up an employment or volunteering position. 

Why the ICPC is key for your organisation

The ICPC provides your organisation with a wide-range of key benefits to ensure that safeguarding children is at the heart of every recruitment decision. 

In providing you vital information concerning conviction and non-conviction data – including current investigations and impending prosecutions – the ICPC allows you to assess an applicant’s suitability for working with children overseas via a robust background check. 

The certificate also details any information which is deemed relevant in the interest of child protection, giving your organisation further evidence in which to make informed recruitment decisions. 

By requesting an ICPC from applicants, you’re also affording your organisation assurances over the authentication of the information provided due to the built in security features, meaning it can’t be tampered with or forged. This is particularly important to consider, bearing in mind other products such as a subject access report could be adapted by the applicant. It would mean that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to trust this information, as there are no added security features available. 

It’s important to remember that while there are a number of products available to key decision-makers in schools such as the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, yet the ICPC is the only product currently readily available that allows organisations to make employment decisions outside the UK. 

In order to demonstrate our commitment to safeguarding children through the use of the ICPC, we have provided a brief overview of the product in a variety of languages. To find out more, please click here. 
 

Registering your interest 

For more information on the ICPC process, please click here.

To register your interest in using the ICPC, please click here. 

If you would like to ask a question about the ICPC, please click here.