What?
You must conduct a form of interview with everyone you recruit to roles involving contact with children and vulnerable adults (you may wish to conduct a form of interview for other roles too, e.g. PCC Treasurer, but that is beyond the scope of this guidance).
By 'interview' we mean a structured conversation which assesses someone's suitability for a role. The interview must be conducted by more than one person (e.g. the incumbent and parish safeguarding officer, or the activity leader and the parish safeguarding officer). Full information about what you must do can be found in the relevant national policy, which can be accessed by clicking on this link.
Why?
An interview gives the opportunity to investigate the individual’s motivation for working with children, young people and/or vulnerable adults as well as explore his/her past experience of working with the relevant group, which may also reveal any indicators of concern.
It is also another opportunity to reinforce the value that the church body places on work with children, young people and vulnerable adults and the seriousness with which the body takes the appointment of those who work or volunteer with such groups.
How?
You can access some example interview questions by clicking on this link.
Selection Methods
Depending on the role, the decision-making process can sometimes be enhanced by using additional selection methods e.g. tasking the candidate with a presentation, observing the candidate working with a particular group. This is more likely to be appropriate for a paid role (e.g. a paid children's or youth worker), but there are no hard-and-fast rules here: you will need to decide whether this level of assessment is proportionate to the role in question.
Interview 'Panel' for Volunteer Roles
Interviews for voluntary roles will almost certainly be more informal than an interview for paid employment, but must still involve a minimum of two people doing the interviewing. The conversation should still be structured and should help you to decide whether or not the person is suitable to work with children, young people or vulnerable adults, including whether the individual has the ability to volunteer in the particular role and co-operate well with the others in the group. The important point is that, as a parish, you need to give yourself the best possible chance of deciding whether or not someone is suitable to be trusted to minister to children, young people or vulnerable adults on your parish's behalf. If you do not ask them, in some structured way, about their experience, values and views regarding the safeguarding and protection of the group to whom they will be ministering, you give yourself no opportunity to find out whether they have values or hold views that preclude them from suitability for these roles.