Verified Volunteers and Plan To Protect Partner to Safeguard Vulnerable Populations

FORT COLLINS, Colo., April 4, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The need to mitigate risk and vet volunteers who care for children, youth and vulnerable adults is crucial. To that end, Verified Volunteers, a leading background screening service for non-profit organizations, and Plan to Protect have partnered to provide greater protection for organizations serving vulnerable populations. Plan to Protect's expertise in abuse prevention and protection along with Verified Volunteers' high quality background screening solutions helps organizations develop a comprehensive safety program to protect people and assets while providing peace of mind.

Verified Volunteers supports nonprofit organizations serving vulnerable populations nationwide and across all major service sectors including youth development, education/mentoring, social and human services, healthcare, faith-based and sports. Together, Verified Volunteers and Plan to Protect encourage a strategic, holistic approach to risk management focused on the critical combination of high quality, accurate and compliant background checks and robust safety assessment and training, emphasizing organizational best practices.

"Our research shows that the number of organizations serving vulnerable populations is on the rise. Our expectation must be that the most vulnerable among us are served in an environment free of physical, sexual or psychological harm," says Katie Zwetzig, Executive Director, Verified Volunteers. "We have expanded the breadth and depth of background checks available to volunteer programs and have worked to close other potential gaps that might challenge organizations through products such as identity validation. By partnering with Plan to Protect, we add another highly effective security and protection option for those organizations we work with to even better mitigate risk within the service sector."

"The issue of physical and sexual abuse and safety remains a huge concern for volunteer-based organizations who are serving the vulnerable sector. For organizations like these, abuse prevention and protection needs to be a strategic initiative," says Melodie Bissell, President, Plan to Protect. "Organizations have an obligation to demonstrate a duty of care to the populations they serve and to their volunteers and employees. Together with Verified Volunteers, we can offer a safeguarding solution that helps organizations prevent and protect against abuse."

About Plan to Protect

Plan to Protect provides the highest standard of abuse prevention to organizations servicing the vulnerable sector. Plan to Protect works with organizations to ensure a safe environment and to identify and prevent abuse by means of assessment, implementation and recognition. Plan to Protect offers customized policies, procedures, risk assessments, policy audits, certification training for trainers and administrators, on-site facilitators for orientation and refresher training and on-line training for abuse prevention screening services.

About Verified Volunteers

Verified Volunteers helps nonprofit organizations gain confidence in their volunteers by delivering thorough, compliant background checks using a sophisticated suite of federal, national, state and local criminal locator tools. Extensive expertise in screening and compliance best practices helps clients recruit the best volunteers to maintain a safe environment and positive reputation. By enabling volunteers to order, manage and share their background checks via a secure online platform, Verified Volunteers creates a community of vetted volunteers. Verified Volunteers is backed by Sterling Talent Solutions, one of the world's largest background screening companies and is partnered with Points of Light, the world's largest organization dedicated to volunteer service.

Media Contacts:
Katie Zwetzig, Verified Volunteers
(970) 232-3550
[email protected]

Melodie Bissell, Plan to Protect
905-642-4693
[email protected]

SOURCE Verified Volunteers