April 24 update
Please take note of these recent updates:
- Refreshed renewal dates
During a recent system audit, we discovered instances where people with screening renewal dates between December 2024 and April 2025 weren’t being prompted to renew their screenings as expected. After identifying the issue, we made the necessary corrections on Wednesday, April 16. As a result, some course deadlines shifted, and new courses now appear on dashboards as requiring renewal. Everyone affected has been given the full amount of time to renew. Staff and volunteers with a renewing course assignment are still cleared to work with kids, as long as they complete the course by the due date. On April 24, we updated the YL Connect dashboard to improve the accuracy of the red and yellow indicators.
- Reduced Requirements for Capernaum Buddies, Peer Leaders, and High School aged volunteers
Together with Capernaum leadership, we’ve determined that Capernaum Buddies will no longer be classified as volunteers in our system. This means they should not be entered into YL Connect Volunteers and will therefore not be required to complete centrally-managed screening.
Similarly, if students are serving as leaders to their peers within a ministry, they do not need to be registered as volunteers in our system and do not need to complete centrally-managed screening
High School-Aged Volunteers do not have to take the Child Safety Course
We’re creating a new version of the Child Safety course designed specifically for our high school-aged volunteers who volunteer with WyldLife or YoungLives childcare. While we develop this course, we are removing the requirement for those volunteers who are under 18.5 to complete the current Child Safety training in YL Connect. Our IT developers are working to update the system so that it will no longer auto-assign the course to volunteers who are under 18.5. We expect this update to be finished by early May.
As of Monday, April 14, the Child Safety course assignment has been removed from volunteers in the roles of high school aged leader and YoungLives childcare volunteer (these are roles where a majority of our high-school age leaders serve) – they should no longer see this training on their YL Connect course dashboard. If you onboard new high school age volunteers or YoungLives childcare volunteers in the next few weeks, the system will auto-assign the Child Safety course however, we have set up a manual process to remove the requirement once a week until our main fix is in place. So while you may see the course requirement show up, we will remove it within the week.
These screening requirements are now reflected in our Volunteer Screening Matrix.
What do I need to do?
Staff and volunteers should watch their emails and review their course dashboard for any new upcoming or outstanding courses. In the coming weeks, we will be reviewing staff and volunteers who have “expired” statuses and will be limiting staff access after 30 days and deactivating volunteers after 45 days. Read more about required courses and limited access.
Supervisors: Review Progress and Encourage Compliance
U.S. field staff, camp admins, and Service Center supervisors can monitor screening and training statuses on the Compliance tab of a Mission Unit record in YL Connect. Review these instructions to see how. Thanks for encouraging your staff and volunteers to take their screening and training!
Need Help Logging In?
If staff or volunteers are having trouble logging in, these login tips can help.
For more details, visit the training resources and FAQs on Staff Resources. Need additional support? Contact the Connections Team.
We are grateful for the thousands of staff and volunteers who have taken time to become screened and trained. This effort helps us protect the mission of Young Life and ensures the safety of young people.
