UCD Canoe Club
Committee Announcements => Announcements => Topic started by: Niall Finch on April 29, 2013, 17:42:06
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Hi All,
There is new legislation coming in in September which will mean that anyone acting in a coaching capacity for the Club will need to be Garda Vetted before they can Coach with the club.
With this in mind I would ask anyone who is either an Instructor or a Trainee Instructor and is interested in instructing/logging hours next year to get in contact with me for a Garda Vetting form. This affects anyone who will wants to log hours next year so it's in your best interest to get them in early.
I'll try to get in contact with most of you individually anyway :)
many thanks, peeps !
EDIT
Here are the links to the Forms - please return the as soon as possible !
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz2XcJ_-5TFINEVLTWxpY0d2TjQ/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz2XcJ_-5TFIRkc2TU1fNVpNWE0/edit?usp=sharing
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*****ALSO****
if you're Garda Vetted in anything else it still makes no difference - you'll have to be Vetted by the UCD AUC
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Hurrah!
It's a bit of paperwork and stuff, but a very good idea :)
Keeping UCD and UCDCC that bit more professional and hopefully safe too. :police:
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I thought Garda vetting was one of those daft schemes that never worked because the Gardai have no interest in vetting people and even less interest in more paperwork. From an outdoor education centre manager I've hear it doesn't work because people can be vetted under slight variations of their name and not show up on the system as having done anything wrong.
This is the start of a multi-page rant against an ever prevalent belief that more paperwork makes people safer, but I'll cut it down to one question.
What are people being vetted for and what show up?
By the way I have done my child protection course with Limerick sports partnership, good course.
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It's due to the new child protection laws that are coming in soon (or have they just been brought in?). Anyway, under it, all people working for or with organisations that have under 18 year olds and/or vulnerable adults must be Garda vetted through that organisation before the commencement of work. In other words, where as before you just needed to have sent your forms in before working with kids, now you must be cleared as well, something which takes weeks to happen. It also means that everyone has to be vetted under the AUC as well as their other organisations
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Good man Peter, nothing like getting the ball rolling on a good rant/rabble.
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Does it cost money? And I heard it can take months if you've lived abroad?
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Does it cost money? And I heard it can take months if you've lived abroad?
It costs moeny in the form of Taxes Kate - not sure what the story is if you've lived abroad
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Does it cost money? And I heard it can take months if you've lived abroad?
It takes months even if you've lived here all your life :)
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Well you've to buy passport photos. and they're like a fiver...
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No, you don't need passport photos
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You don't need passport photos, just need to fill in your name and all the addresses you have lived in. It's simple to do (but they are royal sticklers for you getting every detail correct, and you've to put your middle name everywhere).
And I have a feeling that you cannot be Garda vetted if you have lived outside of Ireland unless you also supply equivalent police clearance from that country.
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The form looks like it's been drawn in crayon
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I thought Garda vetting was one of those daft schemes that never worked because the Gardai have no interest in vetting people and even less interest in more paperwork. From an outdoor education centre manager I've hear it doesn't work because people can be vetted under slight variations of their name and not show up on the system as having done anything wrong.
This is the start of a multi-page rant against an ever prevalent belief that more paperwork makes people safer, but I'll cut it down to one question.
What are people being vetted for and what show up?
By the way I have done my child protection course with Limerick sports partnership, good course.
That may be..... but its necessary for EVERYTHING now and is a pain.. earlier u get the forms in the earlier they come back....
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To be honest the system is a big load of horse manure, I've been gardai vetted three times including one involving background interviews so why am I being asked every single time I go to a new organisation that I need another check which can due to the back log take 6 months? In England you get a police check then have a card that is valid for a certain length of time then it has to be renewed. Ireland get checked once for an organisation and that's it you're done for life
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This topic came up too close to exams to give it a full airing.
So the system/plan is.
1. Instructor types fill out a form for AUC. The form requires details of place you lived for 3 months or more.
2. The Gardai get the form and return whatever info they have on you to AUC
3. AUC do what with the info?
I've so many issues with this? What are AUC looking for, say if I had a string of convictions for fraud and embezzlement would they say I couldn't be a kayak instructor? So what is the threshold for AUC rejecting someone? Is it a published threshold, who decides it and how does in vary?
What is the AUC's data protection policy? If they are collecting mountains of personal data they legally need to have a storage and disposal policy? I checked the AUC's website, no mention of a data policy.
Could info gained in one club be used against an individual in another club. Example, an active kayak instructor with fraud convictions gets elected as treasurer of another club. Will AUC be happy to have that person instructing but veto them being treasurer?
According to the last census about 10% of the Irish population have lived and worked abroad. How on earth are they to get Garda/AUC approval if the police in the other country don't have an reciprocal arrangement with the Gardai?
I hear it takes about 3months to be 'vetted'. So does that mean from next year on when the safety officer is calling instructors on a Friday evening they will also have to ask 'have you been vetted?' This will further reduce the pool of available instructors. Should we be sending out the forms to all the outside instructors now to be ready for September?
Its very hard for people who are no risk to children and who would pass the AUC scrutiny to say they don't want to be vetted, its an emperor's new clothes situation. No one will want to object or be seen to object, but they might not want their life filled out on paper and passed around.
This Garda vetting in complete nonsense. Its aim is to protect children, the effectiveness of this system is completely unknown. But what certainly does is creates a huge heap of bureaucracy, rules out vast numbers of legitimate people and creates a false sense of security.
These are only some of the many issues I have with Garda vetting. I'm glad I am not instructor and I can bring this up in context where people aren't asking what do I have to hide.
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this isnt a topic for discussion its a requirment for instructors, trainee instructors and the club to have completed
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I agree with some of what you've said there Peter but like Dave says, we just have to do it!
It's AUC rules and also (soon to be) the law that all instructors must be fully vetted before working with under 18s, it'll be a criminal offence for everyone involved (bar the child of course) for this not to happen...
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I'll try and answer some of Peter's questions as best I can.
Paragraphs 1-3:
*The Garda Vetting Unit (http://www.garda.ie/Controller.aspx?Page=1535)check for "details of all convictions and/or prosecutions, successful or not, pending or completed, in the State or elsewhere as the case may be are disclosed to the authorised liaison person in the registered organisation."
*They only disclose this information to the specified liaison person, not the organization overall.
*If a disclosure is made, you have the right to find out exactly what it contains. Indeed, you have the right to any personal information that anyone has about you.
*the AUC isn't an independent body, it's part of UCD which certainly does have a data protection policy (http://www.ucd.ie/dataprotection/policy.htm).
*These criteria will be possibly unique to the UCD/ the AUC - in which case it does make sense for the to publish them - fair point. It's possible that UCD have a standard set of garda vetting policies that are listed somewhere else.
Paragraph 4:
*The're the AUC, not the mafia. They're not into blackmail or marginalising people for the hell of it.
Aside from that, it's illegal to keep personal information for purposes other than those specified.
Paragraph 5:
*This is certainly a big potential problem with the Garda vetting procedure. However, it's a problem that would need to be addressed at a national and international level. Perhaps the college could encourage movement on this issue but it shouldn't be criticized for something that's not in its power and we shouldn't refuse to follow the procedure even if it might not work in all cases.
Paragraph 6:
* I'm sure that NiallF will tell you that it means a lot for him to organise, but he seems to be pretty on the ball. That is why he's asked us all to do this now, so that they'll be ready in time for September.
The rest:
As Dave and Diarmuid said, it's not an option.
Peter, I understand that you're not a person who likes to blindly follow into things, someone who likes to see the point of doing something and see that it's done right- it's not a perfect system and you're skeptical of it because of that. UCD are implementing it as best they can.
I disagree about a false sense of security. Having vetting isn't a carte blanche and nobody thinks it is. People are still required to act in a respectful manner to everyone and follow ISC child-protection policy at all times.
UCD has a few different forms to be filled out for this reason and whilst no one of them does everything, between them all they're covering as many bases as they can.
Hopefully the Gardai will be able to implement a perfect system in the future, but for now this is what we can do. It's better to have something that works in the vast majority of cases than to have nothing at all.
(now, to remember to print out those forms...)
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Garda Vetting Unit (http://www.garda.ie/Controller.aspx?Page=1535)
data protection policy (http://www.ucd.ie/dataprotection/policy.htm)
*These criteria will be possibly unique to the UCD/ the AUC - in which case it does make sense for the to publish them - fair point. It's possible that UCD have a standard set of garda vetting policies that are listed somewhere else.
*The're the AUC, not the mafia. They're not into blackmail or marginalising people for the hell of it.
Aside from that, it's illegal to keep personal information for purposes other than those specified.
* I'm sure that NiallF will tell you that it means a lot for him to organise, but he seems to be pretty on the ball. That is why he's asked us all to do this now, so that they'll be ready in time for September.
As Dave and Diarmuid said, it's not an option.
It's better to have something that works in the vast majority of cases than to have nothing at all.
(now, to remember to print out those forms...)
Cheers for the links, good to see what is actually being checked.
When I searched ucd.ie I kept getting a different policy, good to have the right one.
I didn't intend to suggest AUC is some kind of mafia, but when you start gather large amounts of data in a structured way you can find whole new uses for it that you never considered.
Usually companies never intend to breach data protection laws but do so by accident through sloppy storage or poor understanding of what they are allowed to use the data for.
I am more worried about getting outside instructors to fill out these forms, especially for instructors that only occasionally instruct, and may never teach kids, I'm sure the current club members will have the forms filled out ASAP.
Would it make sense to have the form linked on the board so people could download it and return it, speed up the process some bit.
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ALL instructors need to be garda vetted now, inside clubs, outside clubs, professional or not, working with kids or not. So this should not concern any instructor or trainee
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S'craic lads - here are the links to the Garda Vetting Forms that need to be filled out - I would greatly appreciate it if people cold return them to me and not just hand them in as it would make my life much easier to know who has filled them out and who has not. I would also ask that those to whom I have already sent the forms could they please get back to me with them !!!! I'm going away in a week and would love to have as many in as possible !
Muchos gracias mo chairde !
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz2XcJ_-5TFINEVLTWxpY0d2TjQ/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz2XcJ_-5TFIRkc2TU1fNVpNWE0/edit?usp=sharing
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If I was vetted for UCD through the AUC last year do I need to redo it this year? Need to get it into CI next
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Is there any point in me going through with this if it takes 3 months and I'm away next year? I intend on logging hours over the summer but if I'm not gonna get the cert in time anyway I'm not too pushed...
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If I was vetted for UCD through the AUC last year do I need to redo it this year? Need to get it into CI next
I'll check that for you Kieran I'd imagine though if you've done it once you should be OK
Is there any point in me going through with this if it takes 3 months and I'm away next year? I intend on logging hours over the summer but if I'm not gonna get the cert in time anyway I'm not too pushed...
Just fill it out and it means if you get your instructorship before you go yu can instruct next year and also you'll be able to log hours when you come back too if you don't :)
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Is there any point in me going through with this if it takes 3 months and I'm away next year? I intend on logging hours over the summer but if I'm not gonna get the cert in time anyway I'm not too pushed...
Just fill it out and it means if you get your instructorship before you go yu can instruct next year and also you'll be able to log hours when you come back too if you don't :)
And if you get it done before you go it saves you having to get police clearance from Canada when you come home :)
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So you're free to do what you like in Canada ;)!
Will have that to ya asap Niall.
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Grand so!
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More info on the vetting process
http://www.canoe.ie/en-us/awardsqualifications/trainingampdevelopmentunit.aspx
Anyone successfully passed the current system yet?
One more question - who are ILAM? They are on the UCD form as the people that get the report. I was expecting it to say AUC.
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http://tdu.ie/index.php/2013/04/garda-vetting/ is the correct link. Some reason I can't modify my last post.
Oh, just filled out the garda vetting form. 16 lines of addresses!
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I talked to Suzanne Bailey today. Fairly productive chat. So to answer some of the questions I raised.
Process takes 12 to 16 weeks.
A UCD Garda vetting policy is being worked on, not yet finalised.
Other UCD child protection policies are being updated as well.
There is no clear renewal date for vetting, 2 to 3 years is the likely renewal interval.
You can't be vetting unless you have being living in the country for the last 6 months.
ILAM are the governing body for sports complexes, setting standards and policies and so on. They do the Garda vetting for UCD sports clubs. ILAM write their own form and no PPS number is required. They only report back if there is a problem.
As far as I could work out ILAM approval to work for UCD is not transferable to other ILAM governed organisations.
Lastly, I couldn't figure out the criteria people are vetted against. So it seems the only certainty in the process is you must pass an undefined test.