The Florida Senate

394.4572  Screening of mental health personnel.--

(1)(a)  The department and the Agency for Health Care Administration shall require employment screening for mental health personnel using the standards for level 2 screening set forth in chapter 435. "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 unmarried patients under the age of 18 years. For purposes of this chapter, employment screening of mental health personnel shall also include, but is not limited to, employment screening as provided under chapter 435.

(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, provided they are under direct supervision in the actual physical presence of a licensed health care professional.

(c)  Mental health personnel working in a facility licensed under chapter 395 who have less than 15 hours per week of direct contact with patients or who are health care professionals licensed by the Agency for Health Care Administration or a board thereunder are exempt from the fingerprinting and screening requirements, except for persons working in mental health facilities where the primary purpose of the facility is the treatment of minors.

(d)  A volunteer who assists on an intermittent basis for less than 40 hours per month is exempt from the fingerprinting and screening requirements, provided the volunteer is under direct and constant supervision by persons who meet the screening requirements of paragraph (a).

(2)  The department or the Agency for Health Care Administration may grant exemptions from disqualification as provided in s. 435.06

(3)  Prospective mental health personnel who have previously been fingerprinted or screened pursuant to this chapter, chapter 393, chapter 397, chapter 402, or chapter 409, or teachers who have been fingerprinted pursuant to chapter 1012, who have not been unemployed for more than 90 days thereafter, and who under the penalty of perjury attest to the completion of such fingerprinting or screening and to compliance with the provisions of this section and the standards for level 1 screening contained in chapter 435, shall not be required to be refingerprinted or rescreened in order to comply with any screening requirements of this part.

History.--s. 1, ch. 87-128; s. 1, ch. 87-141; s. 23, ch. 93-39; s. 4, ch. 96-169; s. 980, ch. 2002-387; s. 7, ch. 2004-267.