Florida Statutes 394.4572 – Screening of mental health personnel
Current as of: 2023 | Check for updates
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(1)(a) The department and the Agency for Health Care Administration shall require level 2 background screening pursuant to chapter 435 for mental health personnel. “Mental health personnel” includes all program directors, professional clinicians, staff members, and volunteers working in public or private mental health programs and facilities who have direct contact with individuals held for examination or admitted for mental health treatment. For purposes of this chapter, employment screening of mental health personnel also includes, but is not limited to, employment screening as provided under chapter 435 and s. 408.809.
Terms Used In Florida Statutes 394.4572
- Department: means the Department of Children and Families. See Florida Statutes 394.455
- Facility: means any hospital, community facility, public or private facility, or receiving or treatment facility providing for the evaluation, diagnosis, care, treatment, training, or hospitalization of persons who appear to have or who have been diagnosed as having a mental illness or substance abuse impairment. See Florida Statutes 394.455
- person: includes individuals, children, firms, associations, joint adventures, partnerships, estates, trusts, business trusts, syndicates, fiduciaries, corporations, and all other groups or combinations. See Florida Statutes 1.01
- Service provider: means a receiving facility, a facility licensed under chapter 397, a treatment facility, an entity under contract with the department to provide mental health or substance abuse services, a community mental health center or clinic, a psychologist, a clinical social worker, a marriage and family therapist, a mental health counselor, a physician, a psychiatrist, an advanced practice registered nurse, a psychiatric nurse, or a qualified professional as defined in…. See Florida Statutes 394.455
(b) Students in the health care professions who are interning in a mental health facility licensed under chapter 395, where the primary purpose of the facility is not the treatment of minors, are exempt from the fingerprinting and screening requirements if they are under direct supervision in the actual physical presence of a licensed health care professional.
(c) A volunteer who assists on an intermittent basis for less than 10 hours per month is exempt from the fingerprinting and screening requirements if a person who meets the screening requirement of paragraph (a) is always present and has the volunteer within his or her line of sight.
(d) Mental health personnel working in a facility licensed under chapter 395 who work on an intermittent basis for less than 15 hours per week of direct, face-to-face contact with patients, and who are not listed on the Department of Law Enforcement Career Offender Search or the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website, are exempt from the fingerprinting and screening requirements, except that persons working in a mental health facility where the primary purpose of the facility is the mental health treatment of minors must be fingerprinted and meet screening requirements.
(2)(a) The department or the Agency for Health Care Administration may grant exemptions from disqualification as provided in chapter 435.
(b) The department or the Agency for Health Care Administration, as applicable, may grant exemptions from disqualification for service provider personnel to work solely in mental health treatment programs or facilities, or in programs or facilities that treat co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders.