Ancillary Child Care Centers

TrustLine checks an individual’s fingerprints against records at the California Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, and does a name check of the Child Abuse Central Index of California (CACI). TrustLine also has a RAP back service (Record of Arrests and Prosecution), which means the criminal history and CACI checks at DOJ are updated continually within California, with any subsequent arrests or convictions or substantiated child abuse reports that occur. The FBI check is run one time when the applicant first applies.

You can check an applicant’s status by calling or emailing TrustLine. If you have an agency Guardian account, you can go in and view applicants on your roster. If the applicant has applied to TrustLIne for the first time using an application coded with your agency coding, you will be able to see their TrustLine status at the top, under the person’s name. It will say “Accreditation Status,” which could be Registered, Closed or Pending/In-Process.

You have the option of choosing whether you or the applicant pay the application fee. If the applicant is applying online via Guardian, you should provide the applicant with the Applicant Initiated Instruction Form found in your agency Guardian portal. When you generate this instruction form in Guardian, you will be able to choose between an “applicant payment” version or an “agency payment” version. Each of these 2 versions of the form will have its own PIN number. Based on which PIN number the applicant enters into Guardian when submitting their application, that will determine whether Guardian requires the applicant to pay the fee or if the fee is deferred for the agency to pay.

Once someone has applied to the TrustLine Background Check, they remain on the TrustLine database. If they are Registered (they clear the background check) with TrustLine or are a current applicant, they do not need to re-apply to TrustLine. You will just need to associate them to your agency.

If the applicant has worked at a preschool, daycare or community care licensed child care facility within the last three years, the background check clearance can be transferred to TrustLine. All you need to do to transfer the background check clearance is submit the TrustLine application along with the CDSS processing fee. However, if it has been longer than three years since the applicant has worked at the facility, the fingerprints have expired, and the applicant will need to fingerprint for TrustLine.

TrustLine has a one-time only fee of around $143 dollars. Once an applicant is Registered with TrustLine, there is no renewal fee to stay TrustLine Registered.

Guardian is a database that houses multiple background checks run by the California Department of Social Services. These checks include TrustLine, as well as Foster Care, Elder Care, Home Care Aid, and Child Care for example. This means that if someone is in Guardian, they have not necessarily gone through the TrustLine Background Check. Please call us, and we will be able to check for you whether the applicant has gone through TrustLine or not.

You can do this by either going into Guardian and submitting a TrustLine application with your agency coding on it (no fee required). Or you can contact TrustLine and ask to have the applicant associated with your agency. It is important to have the person associated with your agency so that you will receive automatic results of the background check, or any changes in status.