Working with Minors

A minor is defined as anyone under the age of 18.

  • All programs that involve children under age 18 must register at the link below.

    • This includes labs that employ or have “volunteers” that are under age 18.

  • Registration site: https://www1.umn.edu/ohr/policies/minorsafety/registration/index.html

  • All lab staff of labs with minors must complete training and a background check prior to the minor starting. The training titled “Safety of Minors” is an online training through ULearn and takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. Most background checks take about a week to complete and cost around $26 each. This varies and may increase significantly in some situations. The cost of background checks needed for this purpose will be charged to the lab. To complete these background checks, please provide your CBS HR representative with a list of employees, their employee ID numbers and email addresses, and a non-sponsored EFS string to charge the expenses to (send to CBSHR@umn.edu). Background checks that are completed for this purpose are good for three years. If checks were done last year in a particular lab, only new employees to that lab will need checks this year.

  • All labs that will have minors must follow specific Health and Safety Requirements. This includes things like: providing a specific staff to youth ratio depending on the minor’s age; having at least one staff member receive basic pediatric and adult first aid, CPR, and AED training; lab staff must avoid being alone with a minor; lab staff must be aware of mandatory reporting regulations; etc. Additional requirements may apply. You can view the full health and safety requirements for programs involving minors at this page.

The full policy may be found on the Safety of Minors policy page.

If you have questions regarding this policy, please contact CBS HR at cbshr@umn.edu.

Access