How Ohio is Fighting Cyber-Bullying

Ohio House Bill 116 was made into law Thursday, February 2, 2012.

The law requires every school in Ohio to put a cyber-bullying policy into place. Goals include teaching students not to engage in cyber-bullying, training teachers on how to handle cyber-bullying and holding parents more accountable for their children’s online actions. Besides the obvious goal that is prevention of cyber-bullying, the law aims to raise awareness of an increasingly wide-spread and dangerous problem threatening today’s youth.

What will come as a result of this law? Will more and more states begin to walk in Ohio’s footsteps? Will any resulting laws be similar or are there inherent flaws in Ohio’s law that must be ironed out? Quite possibly the most interesting part of this law is the responsibility falling into the hands of the parents. This raises many questions. If a child is old enough to use the internet, aren’t they old enough to be held accountable for their own actions and speech? In the same vein, when are children old enough to begin using the internet and how closely should they be monitored? Though bullying is clearly a problem, does this not slightly impede of freedom of speech? Some may think that laws such as this are unnecessary and default to the popular mentality that “kids will be kids”. Still yet, aren’t preventative measures better than any alternative?

A Must Read for Anyone Hiring Child Care Online

Just how reliable are online background checks? Not Very.

We have told our children time and again, not to talk to strangers on the internet. So why is it that so many parents are meeting strangers on the internet, and leaving their children in the care of these strangers?

In light of recent events, the online background checks run through many online websites, such as sittercity.com, are coming under fire and rightfully so. What are these recent events? A 19-year old man is in police custody on suspicion of sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 10 years. The boy is eight to be exact, and Jordan Liu had been caring for him for the past eight months. Detectives have also been investigating allegations that Liu sexually assaulted the victim’s three year old brother. The parents found Liu on sittercity.com, a site that completes “background checks” on member caregivers. Liu also had a care.com account. And why are online background checks coming under fire? Online background checks are database searches.  They may not show any misdemeanors the candidate has on record. And they offer no further personal screening. Parents who haven’t been trained or experienced in interviewing and reference checking may end up with a false sense of security about the extent of their knowledge about a caregiver found on a website.

Every candidate presented to families by The Philadelphia Nanny Network has gone through in-house screening, in-depth interviewing and extensive reference checking; and no third parties are used. They have also been cleared by a private security firm that conducts a criminal check, a driving check, a credit check and social security number verification. They have been checked against the US Justice Department Sex Offender Registry. And finally, PA residents have passed a PA Child Abuse Clearance.

We do recognize that families use many different resources to find nannies, sitters and other domestic employees, but we cannot express enough how important it is to rigorously check the backgrounds of these individuals. If you are employing on your own, we urge you to use our expertise! Call us for a Candidate Check Package or a Basic Security Check. Please remember you cannot always trust individuals you meet on the internet. For more information on why this is so important, please read the full article here; and please read the developing story of the string of Craig’s List murders spree that has taken place in Ohio here.