It is really just a police record check, and not a full background check, but different police departments have different ways of doing it. If you live in a smaller community, you should be able to take it to your local station and they will sign it for you. I live in a large city and my DS got the runaround for weeks, running all over the place because people kept pushing him off to another location. Part of the problem was that they thought it was a background check and said it would take weeks. I finally asked for help from my friends’s husband, who is a police sergeant. He said “that’s ridiculous, give it to me”
. There was a long parents Facebook page thread about it last year, so I think it gives people trouble every year.