Social workers and social work students are required to issue criminal convictions when registering with the Health and Care Council (HCPC). You must also inform the HCPC about ongoing formal criminal charges. Can I be a social worker with a criminal record?
After registration, social workers and students are required to inform the HCPC of any new convictions or allegations as they occur. Registrants are also required to notify HCPC of other changes in their circumstances, such as a change of address or change of employer. This is a registration requirement and failure to do so may be considered as a proceeding and may result in appearing before a committee of inquiry.
Other roles covered by the HCPC include:
- art therapists
- biomedical scientists
- pediatricians / podiatrists
- clinical scientists
- nutritionists
- hearing aid dispensers
- occupational therapists
- operational department practitioners
- ortoptyści
- medical lifeguards
- physiotherapists
- practicing psychologists
- prosthetists / orthoses
- radiografowie
- social workers in England
- speech therapists
Understand the requirements
The first step is to understand what your jurisdiction requires, for example, a type of past review or disclosure of current or prior involvement in the criminal justice system. You may need to check the status or check the past of the FBI. In addition, jurisdiction may require disclosure of all previous convictions. Truthfulness is important. For example, the management board of an Ohio counselor, social worker, and marriage and family therapist (CSWMFT) requires applicants to conduct a past audit, which includes violations reported to the FBI and state databases. Applicants who are not truthful about the applications, and then are interrogated, because there is conviction in their files, they deepen their problems. What might need to be clarified about a relatively small issue is now becoming a discussion about the omission of the applicant and possible dishonesty.
What security control reveals about you
National police control “Name only”, the most common type, involves searching the person’s name in a criminal record kept by police throughout Australia. It will reveal all disclosed beliefs, those in which you have been found guilty or plead guilty. In some jurisdictions, they will be excluded or “released” after a specified period of time and not released as part of this review. This usually does not include, regardless of the time frame, fees that have been withdrawn, convictions abroad and infringement notices (such as parking tickets) that do not go to court.
