mds3d

1 hour ago, yknot said:

Despite all the training and precautions in place, there were still 5 current cases of sexual abuse reported in 2018. That percentage is still very low, but with all the attention on this issue, how can this still be happening? 

Because people don't follow their training. They think that YPT is overkill, or they think it isn't worth the trouble, or they think it can't happen to them, or there is a malicious actor in place. 

If training is followed, then most cases of abuse are physically impossible.  I have to ask though, why anyone would think the BSA is liable for those 5 cases.  The perpetrator should be charged and jailed if convicted (if they are found innocent then the case didn't really count, did it). The unit and CO should responsible for any negligence in following YPT.  National should only be liable if their was a hole in the policies or training or if they registered a known high risk leader (a registered offender for example).  

3 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

The CSE just stated in a letter to Congress that they have discovered instances where the BSA reinstated leaders after creditable claims of sexual abuse allegations.  Now this is decades ago, but if they did I have a hard time defending the BSA in those specific instances.

Most of this does sound like simply a race to money and they only ones hurt are those who never were involved in the program when the majority of the instances occurred.  

I miss understood the letter. 

I still have a really hard time with "creditable claims." I know that this a sensitive issue, but I assume that while the BSA thought the claims were creditable, the legal system did not? Why aren't we seeing a new wave of personal accusations against the actual perpetrators? It seems clear, unlike the movements against politicians and celebrities, there is no money to be had from bringing up the name of an old scoutmaster. 

10 minutes ago, qwazse said:

Rather than explain, let me give you a reference:

 

Thanks,  it helps to have context.  Seems like the problem was less about it being a bad method  and more about it being the one prescribed method.  I have no problem with the BSA focusing on a singular method of skill teaching since you could spend a masters degree worth of time discussing all of the methods and when they are most useful.  I do a lot of skill teaching at work and teaching others to teach skills.  I  essentially teach the EDGE method because it is more easily applicable than "see one, do one, teach one." That is what we were taught in school but there is often no one else to teach and teach back is awkward and stupid when it isn't and exercise. 

I have no nice words for this conversation anymore.  This seems to be more and more about people looking for monetary compensation for a thing that happened a long time ago.  The story that opens this article is from 58 years ago and as far as I can tell was never reported to National.  That scoutmaster may very well be dead now and organizational policies have drastically changed.  Why would this man even be entitled to restitution from the BSA.  Why is he not suing the church which was responsible for appointing the scoutmaster? Why does no one ever explain that the Chartered Organizations are the ones responsible for the original appointment.  

These articles just need to stop until there is actual evidence.   As far as I can tell, there is no evidence that anyone reported for abuse was reinstated as a leader.  People claim there is but never with evidence.   

Also does no one want to talk about the rate at which these cases occurred? It is always a raw number without thinking about how many boys have been scouts since 1944. 

Holy Zombie Thread, Batman!

I love having a full size (square) necker.   Anything else and I would rather go without.  

I cant find the original parent thread, anyone want to summarize why EDGE was so bad?

On 6/2/2019 at 9:21 PM, John-in-KC said:

Reasons to retire a flag...

It doesn’t represent the current States of the United States (48 or 49 stars, there are still a few around)

It’s frayed, or has been burnt partially, or has been stained such that the stain is visible after cleaning. 

Minimum to destroy

cut the Canton from the Field

place each part in the fire. 

Everything else, to one degree or another, is gilding the lily. 

Why is cutting the canton part of the minimum?   As far as I am aware there is no prescribed method other than the fire part.  We never did it that way but were taught to fold the flag on to the fire whole.  

This is one reason it is so important for Units to have good Unit Commissioners and those UC's to have a good relationship with the SM, the CC, and the COR (and ideally the IH as well).  Assisting with difficult leadership changes is one of the things the BSA places on the commissioner service. This could have been resolved quickly over a cup of coffee.  Either the SM realizes he is the one who needs to change or its "thank you for your service." This shouldn't be a slow process because scout turnover happens too quickly.  

I don't want to comment on any particular post because I don't know that I am responding to a particular thing.  I think we all should be careful that we are not gatekeeping and drawing lines we don't have the authority to draw.  Ms. Ireland is a unique case for sure, but if a female scout moved to the US tomorrow and was granted an equivalency of Life rank would we have the same argument? Would it cause the same stress? When a male scout does the same thing, would it bother us?  

Who has the authority to grant "equivalency" for rank done in other organizations? Did that group grant the rank as they would have for a male scout?  Would it dilute the Eagle if a male scout had done the same thing? Does it really matter to other eagles if some are given a shortcut?

National can fix this by saying no eagles will be issued to female scouts until a certain date regardless of when requirements are completed.  With or without Ms. Ireland there will still be a true "first female eagle" even if there isn't an official one. 

Remember than Advancement is one method but not the only one. 

16 hours ago, Pale Horse said:

We're talking about advancing rank within Cub Scouts, not moving from Cub Scouts to Scouts BSA .  The practice of advancing Cub Scouts to the next rank by age is/was exclusive to LDS units.

Are we? I thought this was about crossover? Whenever I think about crossover, I think about Cub Scouts moving into the next program (crossing over to the older program).  I do think most units move scouts from wolf to bear to Webelos scouts by grade, but moving on to Boy Scouts (not Scouts BSA) has often been done by whenever the boy both completed his AoL and met the requirements for joining (age based) instead of waiting until a grade transition.

Another thought that makes this entirely likely.  You probably know more about this girl than we do, but as designed Scouts BSA girls troops are an independent entity capable of designing their own program.  It is easy to see a new troop designing their early program to focus on helping those girls complete those requirements as they don't have any scouts of higher ranks.  It won't surprise me if this troops turns out several early First Class scouts because their program is focused on that.  

Other than YP, which could be satisfied by having two adults in the same building as the meeting but doing something else, what is the goal of having an ASM at the meeting?

2 hours ago, PinkPajamas said:

In my excitement for lifeguard training this weekend I started looking at all the aquatics patches that can be earned. I found them in the guide to insignia but it only shows an example of boxer style bathing suits. Is there a proper placement for women's one piece suits, other than the generic "left" or "right" side description given?

Sounds like you have found a thing that National may have forgotten about. Should have been addressed before as I really thought that Venturers have been able to do the BSA Lifeguarding course.  I would say that until told otherwise, it goes where you feel it would most logically go.

Back when I was a Unit Commissioner, I would do inspections during my meeting visits.   I always brought small prizes.  I would give out stuff for being "fully uniformed," for most number of uniform shirts in a patrol, etc.  The boys started to enjoy the competition and I started to have to think of higher bars for prizes.  It also gave me a chance to see if there were consistent missing things that might be the result of a families inability to afford.  At the time I had a pretty good line on both used pieces and people who had money but not time to give.  We were able to get boys lots of "really gently used" uniform pieces that way. 

I like uniform inspections for building the team feel that a well uniformed group has.  But I am always cognizant of really good reasons why boys might not be in full uniform.

I stopped buying Girl Scout cookies several years ago.  I have talked with a couple of friends who are Mom's and asked if there was a way I could help support their scouts without contributing to the national organization.  A couple times they have called me on it and I have happily helped.  It feels a lot better than just buying cookies especially since Thin Mints/Grasshoppers are the only ones I really like anyway. 

I am encouraged by the most recent response by National.  I do worry a little about where they seem to be going with the Volunteer Screening Database.   While it is certainly withing the rights of the BSA to exclude volunteers who have even been accused of abuse, I am not sure how I feel about these entries being part of a database shared between organizations.  It certainly seems to violate the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" and seems like it would come too close to libel.

A mildly related example is the Esteem database used by retailers to report employees who have been fired for theft (even if charges were never pressed or a conviction never achieved). Several lawsuits have been brought against Esteem because of the affect it can have on jobs.  Similarly I am just not sure what to think about a database of those only suspected or accused of abuse.

2 hours ago, Cleveland Rocks said:

Local Girl Scout councils say things a lot that aren't national policy. Our local GS council has on many occasions stated that it's GSUSA national policy that you aren't allowed to do {insert activity here}, when it's perfectly acceptable to do this, even encouraged, in other councils.

Example: Our local GS council prohibits units and girls from doing those fundraisers at places like Chipotle or Applebee's, where a portion of your check goes towards the cause. They prohibit by saying that it's GSUSA national policy. Yet, a quick search of the surrounding councils will provide you with the facts that they all permit these fundraisers, and many of them advertise them on their websites.

Years ago, they tried saying that it was GSUSA national policy that set the prices of cookies. When people called them on it, saying that (a) other councils were charging different prices, and (b) they called GSUSA and were told that each council sets their own prices, they had to backtrack and change their statement.

The documents cited above are all from local councils. While they may use the same wording from council to council (everyone knows how to copy-and-paste), there is no directive or policy that has come from the GSUSA national organization prohibiting relationships, partnerships and activities with BSA units.

Except there is a document from GSUSA national that says prohibits joint activities just not in so many words. This document has already been posted and appropriately quoted but here is is again.

https://my.girlscouts.org/content/dam/wcf-images/pdf-forms/Volunteer-Essentials.pdf

On page 38 states "we must endure that we take care that the activities in which girls participate are exclusive to the Girl Scout program, are safe and girl led, and are conducted under the appropriate supervision of Girl Scouts."  That sounds like a rule against joint activities as they would not be "exclusive" and not under the "supervision of the Girl Scouts."

Do you think that doesn't constitute an official policy from GSUSA national?

1 minute ago, willray said:

While ERs cannot deny service, or provide different service for the uninsured, it's not unheard of for the admitting process to spend time trying to determine insurance status when this is not immediately clear.

We do spend time determining insurance status if you don't have any available.  Of course this presumes that you are either actually uninsured or unable to provide your SS# and Insurance carrier (this is enough if you don't have your card).  While this does occasionally delay admission to inpatient areas it does not delay the provision of emergency treatment. We don't put you in a "slow-line" until we figure out if you actually have insurance or not. 

2 minutes ago, malraux said:

Should they treat paying customers or someone else first?

In the United States it is illegal for an emergency department to triage patients by ability to pay. Many Electronic Medical Records don't expose insurance information to ER personnel to prevent even subconscious decisions based on insurance status.  

The only time we (I work in an ER) make decisions for patients based on insurance is when we are concerned that we might better serve a patient by taking a specific action.  For example, I might check to see what medications your insurance will pay for (or what you can afford out of pocket) after we have decided to discharge you.  Or admissions will check to see that we are in-network after the decision to admit has been made (if not we transfer you to someone who is in network if possible). 

On 4/9/2019 at 9:17 AM, willray said:

I guess you're right about the insurance policy information - that's probably overreach, since it's not really necessary for risk mitigation.  Of course, if you'd prefer to go in the slow-line at the ER if you actually need medical assistance, it appears that the form is perfectly happy to accept "None" as an answer.

The emergency contact information perhaps might count as overreach as well, though at least to me, that's less obvious, and I suspect any reasonably responsible entity would insist on collecting that as a condition of participation even if they didn't collect health information.

The rest of the information is pretty much required by YPT - I don't think you're going to find many units willing to risk letting someone participate with youth on an activity, if they don't know your name, age, and in today's world, declared gender.

I'm sorry, "the slow-line"?

Can you tell me what you mean by that?

6 minutes ago, T2Eagle said:

here are common examples of adult participants "fit" to participate in a weekend campout, but whose medical information it's necessary for the troop and the adult in charge of the trip to know about: food allergies and allergies to insects and the carrying of an epi-pen, asthma and inhalers, etc.

This is certainly private medical information, but if the other adults on the trip don't know about it they can't be prepared to render aid if it's needed.  If someone goes into anaphylactic shock there is no time to find and open a sealed envelope with medical information.

I agree with you, but the forms don't just ask that.

"A Scout is trustworthy"

There are quite a few things on the form that aren't necessary for first aid treatment but would be useful for a ER physician.  It might be prudent for there to be another set of information for the troop separate from the part B form. There isn't and I understand why some of these things bother people.  I also understand that people who don't have things they care about keeping between them and their doctor might have a hard time understanding why people were so bothered. 

5 hours ago, mrkstvns said:

It is not YOUR business whether somebody is fit or not fit. That is between them and their doctor. If the doctor has reviewed the demands/requirements and says "fit", then all you have to do is accept his professional opinion and you are absolved of liability. A waiver would be okay. A detailed medical history is not necessary, no matter how much you, BSA, or the busy-bodies in your troop may think it is. Pretending that there is some special "scout-like" obligation is simply nonsense. Medical info is none of your business. Nobody in the troop has a right to expect that it is.

Never said it was.  HIPAA though does set a responsibility on health care organizations to respect an individual's privacy and safeguard their information.

This is the ONLY point that I think should be extended to BSA, schools, camps, and ALL other organizations that ask for any health info: they should respect privacy, safeguard information, and penalties should be imposable for failures to do so. People should be allowed to keep private info private, and organizations that are cavalier about it should be fined, sued or otherwise face consequences. THAT is my point. Exactly how such a policy could be formulated is up to the legislature, but a need for such safeguards is apparent from this discussion.

Health forms aren't a permission slip.  They aren't just about if you are "fit" or not.  

Part A is a liability waver. 

Part B is a voluntary history that provides your unit with the information needed if emergency First Aid is needed or if you are taken to a medical facility and not able to provide a history yourself.  I maintain that this could probably be accomplished with a sealed envelope and a "is there anything on here that we need to know about?"  That makes things on the scouter/parent not on the unit. 

Part C is the "Fit or not" part.  These are for long term camping and high adventure.  They limit the BSA's risk in taking people who shouldn't be in the middle of nowhere for an extended period.  It is partially a medical certification of what you state in part B.  

Here is the thing about privacy.  If you want real privacy of your medical information, don't go. Or don't participate with a troop that doesn't handle your information in a way you deem appropriate.  You have that choice.  HIPAA exists because you sometimes don't have that choice when dealing with medical institutions. You are allowed to keep information from the BSA by not being a member. 

43 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

They allow promoting video games.   

He said "activity" but I think it's clear he meant "organized activities."

If it is a public school then they have to be careful about supporting organizations.  Essentially what applies to one has to apply to all. The food bank  might be an interesting exception depending on what was recommended.  You don't "join" a food bank so it isn't quite the same thing. 

If you are going to have your son approach this then have him collect all the recommendations to find the "line"

9 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

 

P.S.  This just in ... "NASA is willing to pay participants about nearly $19,000 to spend two whole months watching TV in bed. " No explanation why NASA  did not just observe bedridden, medical patients. 

That's easy. Because bedridden medical patient's aren't the same as studying the effect of staying in bed for otherwise healthy individuals.  Medical patients would introduce too many confounding variables. I'm not sure what they research was designed to evaluate, but I can guarantee that sick people aren't good analogues for healthy people. 

Maybe don't be too hard on NASA. 

https://www.popsci.com/women-spacewalk-spacesuit-nasa

Essentially there are two sizes of spacesuit, medium and large.  One each was ready for a space walk.  On another spacewalk, one astronaut found that she fit better in the medium.  So the options are to change who is going to walk, or to prep the other medium suit.  Prepping the other medium suit takes time (a lot), might have delayed the walk, and might have not worked at all.  So, NASA decided that it made more sense to change who was going to make this walk, and have the the other astronaut take a later spacewalk.  

NASA also never set out to have the "first all female spacewalk," it just happened this way. 

On 3/25/2019 at 9:48 AM, willray said:

We're a bit far afield, but I'm going to guess that you use EPIC in a "normal" practice or hospital setting?  If you're managing to make it even remotely useful for clinical trials/research data retrieval, you've managed to do something that's eluded Nationwide Children's and OSU's medical centers!

If we hadn't had access to medical history information, we probably would have felt obliged to hit the panic button on our Garmin InReach and called in a life-flight.  Having a few details from the medical history helped us decide that we could responsibly go with getting the individual to personal vehicle and bugging out in the direction of an ER.  To be sure, we rolled the dice on this one.  Having been dead before, I take cardiac symptoms rather seriously...

I have one of these https://www.mydogtag.com/military/army-medical-warning-tag hanging with a normal dogtag/silencer

My name, DOB, emergency contact is on the normal with more medical information on the medical tag.  The red medical tag has more space (19char/line, 6 lines) than a normal sized dog tag.   As far as I am concerned it has all the medical information needed in an emergency situation. I wear them when ever I am in the wild. My suggestion is to summarize the important info on one or two tags. 

The point about my epilepsy is that it doesn't change appropriate seizure first aid.  You don't need to know that I have a history of seizures to provide first aid. Your example actually supports my point a little.  Without that information you would have overreacted. That isn't great but it certainly isn't as bad as under-reacting.