Who has to have a Level 2 background screening for a Florida APD provider?

Section 393.0655, Florida Statutes requires level 2 screening for direct service providers who are unrelated to their clients, including support coordinators, and all employees of residential facilities or adult day training programs. It also covers volunteers who provide care or services, who have access to a client's living areas, or who have access to a client's funds or personal property.

What happens if an employee has a break in service of more than 90 days?

Section 435.12, Florida Statutes states that a person with a break in service of more than 90 days from a position that requires screening must submit to a national screening if they return to a position that requires screening. A rehire after 91 days is a new screening, not a reactivation.

Background screening09/08/2026·8 min read

Florida Level 2 Background Screening for APD Providers: Who, When, and the Three Clocks Nobody Tracks

Level 2 screening is not one event. It is a five-year FBI recheck, a 90-day break rule that voids everything, and a five-business-day reporting duty most operators have never heard of. Here is the whole thing, from the statutes themselves.

What is required for Florida APD Level 2 background screening?

Level 2 screening is not a one-time clearance. It is a status you have to keep alive. Under s. 393.0655 and ch. 435, F.S. an APD provider must register the person in the Clearinghouse first, fingerprint them second, and have them eligible before they are hired into a screened position. After that, three clocks run: an FBI recheck every 5 years, a 90-day break rule that forces a whole new national screening, and a 5-business-day duty to report every change in someone's employment status.

Most operators think of background screening as a thing you do once, at hiring, and then file. That is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this whole area, because Florida does not treat it as an event. It treats it as an ongoing status in a shared state database — and three separate things can quietly end it.

Everything below comes from the statutes themselves and from APD's own background screening page. Read them yourself; they are linked at the bottom.

Who actually has to be screened?

Section 393.0655, F.S. is wider than most people assume. It reaches:

Direct service providers who are unrelated to their clients, including support coordinators
All employees of residential facilities or adult day training programs
Volunteers — but only those who provide care or services, who have access to a client's living areas, or who have access to a client's funds or personal property

That last one catches people out. A volunteer is not automatically exempt because they are unpaid. The test in the statute is access, not payroll.

What a Level 2 screening actually checks

Section 435.04, F.S. sets the standard, and it is broader than a criminal record check:

Fingerprint-based statewide criminal history through FDLE
A national criminal history check through the FBI
Local criminal records checks through local law enforcement
A search of the sexual predator and sexual offender registries for every state the person lived in during the immediately preceding 5 years

The statute makes screening a condition of employment and continued employment — the second half of that phrase is what the rest of this article is about.

The order matters, and getting it backwards costs money. APD states plainly that under s. 435.12, F.S. providers must register all employees and initiate all criminal history checks through the Clearinghouse BEFORE sending anyone to a Livescan provider for fingerprinting. Fingerprint someone first and the results have nowhere to attach — you pay for the scan twice and the person waits twice as long to start.

Can they start work while you wait?

Partly, and the line is sharper than most staffing decisions treat it. APD's own guidance says that under s. 393.0655, F.S. everyone required to be screened must be screened and eligible before they are hired into a position requiring Level 2 screening. An employer may bring someone in for training or orientation before the screening clears — but that employee may not have direct contact with vulnerable persons until the screening process is completed.

In practice that means a new hire can sit in a classroom and read your policies. They cannot be counted in a home, cover a shift, or be alone with anyone.

Clock one: the FBI recheck, every five years

Section 435.12, F.S. requires fingerprints to be resubmitted for a Federal Bureau of Investigation national criminal history check every 5 years, until the person is enrolled in the national retained print arrest notification program.

This is the clock almost nobody has written down anywhere. A staff member hired in 2021 and still working is due — and there is no letter coming to remind you.

Clock two: the 90-day break that voids everything

Section 435.12, F.S.: “A person with a break in service of more than 90 days from a position that requires screening by a specified agency must submit to a national screening if the person returns to a position that requires screening.”

Ninety-one days is a full new national screening, not a reactivation. This is the one that bites seasonal and part-time staffing hardest: a reliable employee who takes a summer off, or a per-diem who happens not to pick up a shift for three months, comes back as a brand-new hire in the eyes of the statute.

Clock three: five business days, every time

This is the obligation almost no operator has heard of. Section 435.12, F.S. requires employers to register with the Clearinghouse and maintain the employment or affiliation status of all persons included in it, and — effective 1 January 2024 — initial status and any changes in status must be reported within 5 business days.

A change in status means a hire, a termination, a resignation, a transfer. Every one of them starts a five-day clock. And because the Clearinghouse roster is a live document rather than a filing cabinet, it is also the first thing a reviewer looks at.

Why the roster is the thing that gets checked first. Qlarant's own Provider Discovery Review Administrative Tool makes the APD Employee/Contractor Roster in the Clearinghouse its first standard, and says outright that Not Met on it is an automatic Alert. A roster that is three weeks behind on terminations is not a paperwork problem — it is the opening question of your review.

One more detail: the photograph

Section 435.12, F.S. requires that fingerprints be submitted with a photograph of the person taken at the time the fingerprints are submitted. If a Livescan vendor did not take one, that submission is not complete.

What this means for how you track it

A single “screening date” column in a spreadsheet cannot hold this. For one employee you are carrying:

The date they were screened and found eligible
The five-year FBI recheck date that follows from it
Their current employment status in the Clearinghouse, and whether the last change was reported inside five business days
Any gap in employment, and whether it crossed 90 days

Multiply that by a roster and you can see why this is the area reviewers open first. It is the requirement with the most moving parts and the least paperwork arriving to remind you.

Sources

This article is general information for Florida APD group-home providers, not legal advice or a guarantee of compliance. Rules change and vary by region — always confirm the current requirement with the cited source and your APD regional office.