Austin, Texas, September 1, 2003 — Austin Computing
Solutions, a small technology service company in Austin, Texas, is helping
the Catholic Church tackle the enormous task of managing the Church’s sexual
abuse prevention program with the company’s new web-based product, eAppsDB.
Austin Computing Solutions began designing its product in October of 2001,
when the Catholic Diocese of Austin, Texas began implementing its “Ethics
and Integrity in Ministry” program. According to Teresa Klepac, President of
Austin Computing Solutions, “We recognized the problem the Austin Diocese
was faced with while attending a sexual abuse prevention workshop for church
volunteers. Bishop Aymond presented the Diocese of Austin’s Policies on
Ethics and Integrity in Ministry to everyone at the workshop. The
presentation also included a paper application for all volunteers to fill
out, so that the Diocese could perform a background check on each
individual.” At the time, the Bishop’s staff had not developed a system to
collect the applications and submit information for criminal background
checks. As active stewards in our Catholic faith, we built eAppsDB to help
the Austin Diocese solve a problem.
eAppsDB, short for “electronic applications database,” allows the applicant
to log onto a secure web site to enter their personal data. “The application
is very much like an employment application,” says Klepac, “It collects
the necessary personal, residential, educational, and employment
information, as well as references and volunteer history.”
Responding to the challenge of implementing and managing a nation-wide
program mandated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in
their 2002 “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” Austin
Computing Solutions is offering their product nationally to all of the 190+
Catholic Dioceses across the United States. |
Recently, Klepac’s company teamed up with
Rapsheets.com, home of America's largest database of criminal records on the
Internet. “When a volunteer applicant completes their information and clicks
on the ‘submit’ button, our web server talks to the Rapsheets web sever via
XML technology, and within a few seconds the church will know the status of
the volunteer’s criminal history record,” boasts Klepac.
In addition to individual applicant security, there are two additional
layers of security at the parish and the diocesan level, where parishes
manage their parish volunteers, and the diocese manages parish activities.
Klepac went on to say, “To our knowledge, eAppsDB truly is a unique
product. No one else in the country combines the application, criminal
background check, and workshop tracking processes into a single, easy-to-use
online database application. It is a complete, turnkey, low-cost system that
is easily and securely implemented through the Internet from our web and
database servers.”
A system like this would be very costly for a single diocese to design,
implement and maintain. However, spread across many dioceses, a system like
this is very cost effective to each participating diocese.
Austin Computing Solutions is owned and managed by Teresa and Bill Klepac. In addition to the Austin Diocese, eAppsDB is being used in the dioceses of San Angelo, Tyler, Victoria, El Paso, as well as the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.
For information: http://www.eappsdb.com or
Contact: info@austincomputing.com
Phone: 512-231-1238
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