Guide to Minors Paperwork
As our programs bring minors (people under the age of 18) to our Boston campus, we follow the policies outlined by Northeastern’s “Policy on Programs Involving Minors [611]“.
People (students, faculty, staff) at Northeastern who wish to participate in outreach must follow this policy, which is detailed below. For events hosted by the Center for STEM Education, the center handles most of the administrative back-end process (such as registering the program with the minors office, reporting paperwork, etc), however, you will still be responsible for turning in your paperwork:
If you are a Northeastern student interested in volunteering in K-12 STEM outreach, required paperwork must be submitted via this survey: NEU Volunteer Paperwork.
If you are a Northeastern student doing work study with us and will be interacting with minors, required paperwork must be submitted via this survey: NEU Work Study Paperwork.
If you are a faculty or graduate student mentor working with minors in our Young Scholars’ program, we will contact you directly for your paperwork.
As part of the process above, you will be asked to complete two major steps:
1. Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI)
Updated policy on working with minors (as of Spring 2025) now requires all students to be CORI’ed in order to work with minors. CORI’s – a type of background check – are valid for three years.
A. Do not begin the CORI process on your own. Once we have received the above survey from you (or confirmed you as a YSP mentor), we will initiate the CORI process from our end.
B. You will receive an email from Northeastern & Creative Services (3rd party CORI vendor) to complete your CORI. Emails will come from “[email protected]”, with a title similar to “Northeastern University Background Screening Request”. See below for a sample screenshot of the CORI request.
C. Follow the link in the email and please complete the information they request. When you get to the step about notarized/signatures, please come to our office (Stearns 301) to have Mary Howley or Professor Love sign your paperwork (do not pay for it to be notarized).
D. Once you have completed all paperwork (you will receive an email “Thank You for submitting your information”, we will receive confirmation from Northeastern / Creative Services and let you know have completed this paperwork requirement.
2. 51A Mandated Reporter Training
This training is required by NEU Minor’s policy. This training takes ~1 hour and is good for three years. Once you have completed the training, please upload your certificate of completion in the survey listed above (or for YSPs, these will be sent to our admin officer).
Please note we no longer use the Middlesex 51A website and now use the MA State 51 Portal at: https://mandatedreportertraining.com/massachusetts/. Please make an account on this website. Your Middlesex 51A certificate will be valid until it expires, after which you will be required to use the state portal.
Step-by-step:
1. Log-in. On the sidebar, click Trainings.
2. Add Training -> Child Abuse Prevention | MA, General Training
Select Training, then Add Trainings at Bottom of page.
3. Complete the training -> submit certificate in survey above.
FAQ:
Q: I’m CORIed through another organization already, do I still need to get a CORI?
A: If the organization is at Northeastern (such as a student club), you do not. If the organization is outside the campus, yes you will need to do your CORI again with NEU.
