Keep Kids Safe PA Clearances: Costs, Disqualifiers, and Renewal

To work or volunteer with children in Pennsylvania, the Keep Kids Safe PA clearances require three separate background checks: a Pennsylvania child abuse history clearance, a Pennsylvania State Police criminal record check, and an FBI fingerprint-based criminal history check. Employees pay roughly $60 for the full set, and the clearances stay valid for 60 months before you have to renew them.¹

Who Has to Get Clearances

The requirement covers a wide group. Under 23 Pa. C.S. § 6344, anyone 14 or older in a paid position that involves direct contact with children must complete all three clearances before starting work. Unpaid volunteers who are responsible for a child’s welfare or who have direct contact with children fall under the same rule.²

Foster and prospective adoptive parents need the full set before a child is placed with them. Adults 18 and older who live in a foster or adoptive home for at least 30 days in a calendar year also need clearances, even if they have no caregiving role. The same applies to adult household members in licensed family living homes, community homes for individuals with intellectual disabilities, and host homes for children.²

The Three Clearances and What They Cost

Each clearance checks a different database, and you need all three.

Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Clearance. Checks the statewide database maintained by the Department of Human Services for any record of you as a perpetrator of founded or indicated child abuse. Employees, foster parents, and adoptive parents pay $13. Volunteers pay nothing, though the fee waiver only applies once every 57 months.³
Pennsylvania State Police Criminal Record Check (PATCH). Searches Pennsylvania’s criminal history database for convictions, open cases, and other records. The fee is $22.⁴
FBI Fingerprint-Based Criminal History Check. Compares your fingerprints against federal criminal databases. As of January 2025, the fee is $24.95 for employees and foster or adoptive parents, and $22.95 for volunteers.⁵

Employees paying all three fees spend about $59.95. Volunteers who qualify for the child abuse fee waiver and the FBI exemption below may only pay the $22 PATCH fee.

Volunteer Discounts and the Daycare Carve-Out

Volunteers follow the same process as employees but get two breaks. The child abuse history clearance is free once every 57 months.³

Volunteers can also skip the FBI fingerprint check entirely if they have been a Pennsylvania resident for the full preceding 10 years, or if they already obtained an FBI clearance at any point since establishing Pennsylvania residency. You sign a disclosure statement affirming your residency history.⁶

One important limit. The FBI exemption does not apply to volunteers at child daycare centers, group daycare homes, or family child-care homes. In those settings you need all three clearances regardless of how long you have lived in Pennsylvania.

How to Apply for Each Clearance

Child Abuse History Clearance

Apply online through the Pennsylvania Child Welfare Portal, part of the COMPASS system on the Department of Human Services website. You’ll need your Social Security number, every address where you’ve lived, and basic identifying information. Online results often come back within minutes to a few days.³

State Police Criminal Record Check

Submit this through the Pennsylvania Access to Criminal History (PATCH) system on the State Police website. Enter your details, pay the $22 fee, and results are typically delivered electronically within minutes.⁴

FBI Fingerprint Check

Schedule a fingerprinting appointment through IdentoGO. Your employer or organization gives you a service code identifying the type of clearance you need. A technician captures your fingerprints electronically at the appointment and transmits them to the FBI. Results go to the Department of Human Services, which makes the certification available through the Child Welfare Portal.⁵

Accuracy matters on every form. A misspelled name, wrong birth date, or missing address can slow processing or trigger a rejection, and you certify under penalty of law that everything you submit is truthful.

Starting Work Before All Clearances Come Back

Clearances sometimes take weeks. Under Act 12 of 2022, an employer can provisionally hire someone for up to 45 days while the applicant waits for either the FBI or state police clearance to return. Every one of these conditions must be met:

The applicant has applied for all three clearances and given the employer copies of the completed request forms.
The child abuse history result is already in hand, along with at least one of the other two.
The employer has no reason to believe the applicant would be disqualified.
The applicant swears in writing that they have not been convicted of a disqualifying offense and have not been named as a perpetrator of founded child abuse in the past five years.
The applicant is never alone with children and stays in the immediate vicinity of a permanent employee.
If any clearance returns disqualifying information, the employer terminates the applicant immediately.

Offenses That Disqualify You

Not every criminal record blocks you from working with children, but certain offenses are absolute bars. Under 23 Pa. C.S. § 6344(c), an employer cannot hire or approve anyone convicted of the following, or their federal or out-of-state equivalents:²

Criminal homicide, aggravated assault, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, and stalking.
Rape, statutory sexual assault, sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, indecent exposure, and incest.
Endangering the welfare of children, concealing the death of a child, dealing in infant children, corruption of minors, and sexual abuse of children.
Felony prostitution-related offenses, and producing or distributing obscene material involving minors.
Attempting, soliciting, or conspiring to commit any of the above.

A felony drug conviction under Pennsylvania’s Controlled Substance Act does not permanently bar you, but it disqualifies you for five years from the date of the conviction.²

Daycare settings add more. If you’re applying to work at a child daycare center, group daycare home, or family child-care home, felony strangulation, felony arson, and federal interstate domestic violence or protection-order violations also disqualify you.²

Being named as the perpetrator of a founded child abuse report in the statewide database also disqualifies you, separate from any criminal conviction.

Renewal and Portability

All three clearances expire 60 months from the date of the oldest clearance in the set. Once that window closes, you need fresh versions of all three to keep working or volunteering with children. Employers or licensing rules may require more frequent renewals, but 60 months is the legal minimum.¹

If you change employers during that five-year window, your existing clearances are portable. You can present them to a new employer as long as they are still current, and you complete a written affirmation that you have not been convicted of a disqualifying offense since the clearances were issued.

What You Have to Report Between Renewals

A clearance is a snapshot of the day it ran. If something changes during the five-year window, you cannot wait for renewal. You must notify your employer in writing within 72 hours if you are arrested for or convicted of a disqualifying offense, or if you are named as a perpetrator in a founded or indicated child abuse report. The employer then decides whether you can continue in your role.

An arrest three years after your last clearance will not surface until the next renewal unless you report it, so silence during that gap creates real exposure for both you and the organization.

What Happens if You Skip the Clearances

Pennsylvania treats clearance failures as criminal matters, not just administrative ones. Willfully failing to cooperate with the Department of Human Services or a county agency during a child abuse investigation is a third-degree misdemeanor for a first offense and a second-degree misdemeanor for later violations.⁷

For an individual, working with children without valid clearances means immediate removal once discovered. For an organization, it can mean loss of licensure, loss of funding, and loss of the ability to operate child-serving programs at all.

1
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. Child Abuse Clearances
2
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 6344 – Employees Having Contact With Children; Adoptive and Foster Parents
3
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. Child Abuse History Certification
4
Pennsylvania Department of Education. Pennsylvania Access to Criminal History PATCH
5
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. FBI Fingerprinting
6
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. Disclosure Statement for Volunteers
7
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 6344 – Employees Having Contact With Children; Adoptive and Foster Parents