First Focus Joins MENTOR’s Push to Make SafetyNET Permanent
6/12/2009
First Focus has joined Alliance Partner MENTOR and other leading youth service organizations in the effort to reintroduce the Child Protection Improvements Act and seek its passage this year.
The legislation would create a permanent, streamlined system to allow youth-serving organizations access to nationwide FBI fingerprint searches that are timely and affordable. It is based on the PROTECT Act pilot (SafetyNET), which mentoring organizations and others have been testing for nearly five years.
First Focus, America's Promise Alliance's policy affiliate, is a bi-partisan advocacy organization that is committed to making children a priority in federal policy and budget decisions and, in this instance, to making children's safety a congressional priority.
"We're pleased to lend our voice and our resources to the vital effort to ensure that potential mentors are carefully screened through the pioneering criminal background check system known as SafetyNET," said First Focus Vice President for Education, Housing and Youth Policy Phillip Lovell. "Clearly, this system is of great value to mentoring organizations, but it will be equally valuable to all youth-serving organizations that engage volunteers in their work."
MENTOR's Chief Administrative Officer Tonya Wiley said, "We are delighted that First Focus is part of the effort to advocate for this legislation. We also are grateful to have LifeLock as a SafetyNET sponsor for this critical step in the mentor screening process."
MENTOR and other leaders of the coalition actively supporting the Child Protection Improvements Act — including Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Volunteers of America, the Afterschool Alliance and National Human Service Assembly's Collaboration for Youth — welcome First Focus' involvement and leadership.
National Assembly President Irv Katz noted, "First Focus brings bi-partisan leadership support to this crucially important legislation, which is very encouraging and much appreciated."
For more information about SafetyNET and the Child Protection Improvements Act, visit www.mentoring.org.
To become active in helping make nationwide criminal background checks a permanent resource for volunteers working with children, join the advocacy network at http://www.mentoring.org/advocate/.
About First Focus
First Focus is a bipartisan advocacy organization that is committed to making children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions. First Focus brings both traditional and non-traditional leaders together to advocate for federal policies that will improve the lives of America’s children. Child health, education, family economics, child welfare and child safety are the core issue areas in which First Focus promotes bipartisan policy solutions. For more information, visit http://www.firstfocus.net.
About MENTOR
For more than a decade, MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership has been working to expand the world of quality mentoring. MENTOR believes that, with the help and guidance of an adult mentor, each child can discover how to unlock and achieve his or her potential. MENTOR is widely acknowledged as the nation's premier advocate and resource for the expansion of mentoring initiatives nationwide. For more information, visit www.mentoring.org.