Hi
My church has a policy for the entire church that deals with physical/emotional/sexual abuse.
We have a screening form that is filled out by volunteers and also by paid staff. The form gives us the right to do background checks but we do not necessarily do a check on every person.
One of the advantages of WoRM is that children will never be left alone with any one leader; there should always be at least one shepherd and one workshop leader at all times. This is a very good rule for all programs, not just WoRm.
The background checks do take time and they do take money. If your church has not budgeted for this then that obviously must be addressed. Do you do the background checks through local law enforcement? As I am sure you know, doing a criminal background check is very different from checking references listed on a form or application.
Does your church policy regarding this state who should in fact be handling reference checks and background checks?
I would hope that the leadership would be supportive and willing to step up to help get this done, and to make sure that the funds are budgeted to have it done properly.
If you have a very large congregation with lots of "new" folks in each rotation, I think you really need to do checks. It will require a lot of planning ahead and working to get your volunteers lined up for each rotation several months in advance, but it would definitely make it easier to get the "paperwork" done. Again, if the leadership, both clergy and lay, are committed to making this a priority, it will make your job much easier.
Good luck
Jan Snell