Child Abuse History Certification (CY113)

Cost

• Free — Volunteers
• $13 — Employees, Foster/Adoptive 

Note: Child abuse certification fees for volunteers will continue to be waived one time every 57 months. 

How to Submit an Application

Online Submission

The Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Certification can be submitted and paid for online through the Child Welfare Information Solution (CWIS) self-service portal. Submitting an application online allows individual applicants to receive their results through an automated system that will notify them once their results have been processed. Applicants will be able to view and print their results online.

The self-service portal also provides organizations the ability to create business accounts to prepay for child abuse clearances and have online access to the results. Organizations who want to set up business accounts must first register for a Business Partner User account using the "Organization Account Access" link on the Child Welfare Portal. Organization accounts will allow businesses and organizations to purchase Child Abuse History Certification payment codes and distribute those codes to applicants. When an applicant uses a code given to them by an organization, the organization will have access to the applicant's Child Abuse History Certification results once those results are processed.

Paper Submission

• CY113 form — Child Abuse Certification (English)
  
• CY113 form — Child Abuse Certification (Spanish)
  
• CY 999 — Consent/Release of Information Authorization Form
  

Paper submissions of the Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Certifiction application will still be accepted for anyone who may not have access to the internet, or who may be unable to access the self-service portal due to their attempting to access the system from outside the United States. Please note, results will be received more quickly if applied for electronically through the self-service portal. Submit paper applications to:

ChildLine and Abuse Registry

Pennsylvania Department of Human Services

PO Box 8170

Harrisburg, PA 17105-8170

The instructions for how to complete the Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Certification application are now included on the last page of the application and can be printed for easy reference when completing the application. Failure to comply with the instructions that are attached to the application will cause considerable delay in processing the results.

Applicants can now type their information directly onto the application or the information can be legibly handwritten onto the application.

If the information is typed directly onto the application, the information will NOT be able to be saved on a computer unless the computer has a licensed version of the acrobat adobe software. Therefore, please be sure to print the completed application before closing the document so that the information typed on the application is not lost.

If you have trouble accessing the application you may need to download the latest version of Adobe Reader, which is available free on the internet.

Once the application is received in the ChildLine and Abuse Registry's Verification Unit, the results of the Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Certification will be mailed to the applicant's address that was noted on the application within 14 days from the date that the application is received in the ChildLine Verification Unit.

An applicant can request that a Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Certification be mailed to an organization by completing a Consent Release of Information Authorization Form. Both the applicant and organization must sign the form and the form must be attached to a paper Child Abuse History Certification application submitted via mail in order for the results to be released to the organization. Older versions of the Consent Release Form without a signature line for the organization will not be accepted and the certification result will be returned directly to the applicant, not the organization.

NOTE: Results cannot be sent to someone other than the applicant if applying for a Child Abuse History Certification electronically via the online link above. If an organization pays the application fee, they will have the ability to access an applicant's results online if they set up a business account and provide the prepaid code to the applicant.

Questions

For questions related to the Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Certification , please contact the ChildLine Verification Unit at 717-783-6211 or toll free at 1-877-371-5422.

 Suspect Child Abuse? Call Childline: 1-800-932-0313