Caregiver screening for care platforms
Families trust a marketplace to match them with someone who will be alone with a child or an aging parent. One API call screens a caregiver against all 58 US sex offender registries and criminal records — at signup or in bulk — so trust-and-safety is a control you can point to, not a gap a reporter finds first.
The gap a reporter already found
This is not hypothetical. In 2019 the Wall Street Journal reported that a major care marketplace put the onus of background checks on families — with sometimes tragic outcomes.
The investigation found that over six years, caregivers with prior police records who were listed on the platform went on to be accused of crimes — including abuse and cases in which children died — and that a “background checked” badge often meant only a one-time preliminary database screen, with no interview, references or fingerprinting behind it. The company pulled tens of thousands of listings in the days before the report ran. When something goes wrong, the questions a platform faces are always the same: what did you check, and when? A registry screen is a concrete, documentable answer.
How care platforms integrate it
One endpoint, one schema — screen at the moments that matter and sweep the base you already have.
- At signup. Screen a new caregiver against all 58 US registries before a profile can go live or message a family.
- At booking. Re-check at the point a family actually hires, when the stakes are highest.
- In bulk. Batch-screen your existing caregiver base in one pass — same scored, source-cited schema, billed per row.
- Criminal records too. Add county, state and federal records on the same key where the role warrants.
- Ongoing. Re-screen or monitor so a caregiver added to a registry later does not stay invisible on your platform.
Details on the home-care, home-health and childcare solutions, and the Sex Offender Search API. Serving families directly? See the nanny and caregiver background-check guides.
Why trust-and-safety teams add it
A control you can point to
“We screen every caregiver against the sex offender registries” is a statement families understand and press and regulators respect — and it is defensible only if you actually run the check.
Screen every caregiver, not some
Per-check pricing lets you apply the same screen across your whole base and every new signup, instead of a badge that means less than families assume.
Reputational risk control
A single incident tied to a caregiver who “shouldn’t have been on the platform” is an existential brand event and a negligence magnet. Screening is a proactive, documentable duty-of-care step.
Trust as conversion
Safety is the product for a care marketplace. Registry screening is a trust story you can market to the families deciding whether to book through you at all.
Care-platform screening questions
Why do care marketplaces screen caregivers against the registry?
User safety and platform liability. A 2019 Wall Street Journal investigation reported that a major care marketplace put the onus of background checks on families, and that caregivers with prior police records who were listed on it went on to be accused of crimes. When a family is trusting your platform to match them with someone who will be alone with a child or an elderly parent, a registry check is a concrete trust-and-safety control you can point to.
How does a platform integrate it?
One API call. POST a name (and any date of birth, age or location you hold) to /v1/search and get back scored, de-duplicated records across all 58 US registries, each cited to the official source. Screen a caregiver at signup, again at the point of booking, or batch-screen an existing roster — the same schema every time.
Can it scale to a large caregiver base?
Yes. A batch endpoint takes many searches in one request and bills per row, and an async endpoint handles high volume. Per-call pricing ($0.15, lower at volume) is public, so the unit cost stays predictable as your marketplace grows.
Is this a consumer report?
No. Offendersearch is not a consumer reporting agency and results are not a consumer report. It is a registry-and-records search surface you integrate as one trust-and-safety signal; adjudication and any FCRA-covered process remain the platform’s responsibility.
Offendersearch is not a consumer reporting agency and results are not a consumer report. Reporting references are general information, not legal advice.
Add caregiver screening to your platform this week
An instant key, 25 free calls, one endpoint across all 58 US registries — plus criminal records on the same key.