Arizona-based SoulSpark, a virtual clinic that provides mental health services to young survivors of trauma, partnered with Biometrica Systems, a technology company based in Arizona and Nevada that tracks crime and criminals, to protect at-risk youth victims of tragic events.
Biometrica created eMotive, a 24/7 criminal background checking software. SoulSpark was the first healthcare organization to sign up for it. SoulSpark CEO Dr. Jania Davis said they wanted an extra layer of security for the at-risk children they work with.
eMotive has the ability to notify organizations in near real-time that an employee has potentially been arrested or convicted. The notification is sent within minutes of an event being updated in law enforcement databases.
Dr. Davis has a personal motivation for wanting the protection eMotive provides.
“Last year, a healthcare facility I was part of was rocked by the arrest of a longstanding staffer, charged with multiple counts of sexual conduct with a minor. It was tragic for the teenager, but also a devastating indictment of the system for everyone who worked there,” Davis said in a statement. “We had one question: How did we miss it? We think eMotive holds the key to proactive protection, inasmuch as any system can.”
SoulSpark can use the notifications eMotive sends to determine a course of action based on the relevancy of the arrest.
“If a provider is arrested for a bounced check, it isn’t relevant,” Davis said in a statement. “But if they are arrested for child pornography or domestic violence, that is relevant, especially as they interact with vulnerable youth.”
eMotive was built with at-risk children in mind. Biometrica CCO Kadambari Wade said she considered her daughter, who is 12, but about 3 years old developmentally, and her not being able to identify inappropriate conduct.
Wade said in a statement that eMotive was built to protect children “by ensuring people around them could be monitored on a continuous basis for the potential to do harm.”
eMotive works differently than any traditional background-checking software.
“Our algorithms run automated continuous monitoring of enrolled people, as opposed to traditional, manual, single point-in-time checks,” Charlotte Spencer, eMotive’s lead UI/UX developer, said in a statement. “We focus only on law enforcement-sourced data. We don’t track credit scores, license plates, drug tests or social media — that isn’t our business. We’re interested in whether you were arrested or convicted, and why.”