yknot

Where I am no one on one means no one adult with any amount of scouts, unless driving with at least one other scout. I'm not sure everyone interprets the policies the way you two are. Certainly you can have a one on one with a scout in a corner of a room in view of others but another adult has to be in the room, not somewhere in the building. I'm not clear at all how the interpretation you follow provides either no one on one or two deep youth protection.

I've heard that explanation before from some in scouting but every other youth organization that employs two deep leadership does so for youth protection reasons, not merely safety as you describe. It's to have two adults present as a check and balance against one another and thus protect the child. I think these are the kinds of issues that Michael Johnson was referring to. No one on one requires that two adults be present. If safety alone was the consideration, then being alone in an open door room with a scout or scouts in a building where other scout activities are taking place would not violate YP, but it does. Furthermore, from a liability standpoint, it seems more than problematic.

That's the loophole that people use. I think some common sense has to apply when you have an individual adult walking over to the health office or some other such task. On the other hand, people use that loophole to have only one adult in the camp site or to go off on a hike or take a bunch of kids to a swimming hole, etc., The rationale will be that there are "dozens" of registered adults present and the entire camp facility is the activity. The issue with the 72 hour rule is that it can inadvertently result in an unregistered adult being that sole individual supervising the camp site. I think if you are engaged in any kid related task, you need two adults. Not glimpsed walking through the trees or somewhere in the vicinity but where the kids and other adult are. Most abuse happens at either summer camp or on camp outs so if you want to apply stringent YPT where it will do the most good, do it there. I am frequently incredulous at the people who will leap out of an open door troop meeting if they find themselves 50 feet away but alone with a scout or two in a room for 30 seconds, but will be belligerent about taking a group of scouts for a day hike at summer camp because "camp is the activity". If YPT is supposed to be based on actual safety measures, the logic in those situations does not track. Then we are simply doing YPT for show, not effect, if it's somehow OK to be hiking alone with kids at summer camp. IMO.

I'm talking about leaving only one adult in the camp site with one bunch of scouts while the other adult goes off for a hike or something with a different bunch. That kind of thing. That's been discussed on this forum and people do report doing that.

What you see as a dream is the only way we attend camp. A lot of units somehow don't follow the two adult rule at summer camp, I think because it is not expressly ordered by BSA, which is to my mind a problem. Perhaps it's no coincidence that many of the abuse cases seem to be linked to summer camps.

In our case our unit was much more meticulous than our council. I am sure this is no longer the case, but within my recent memory the council did not perform background checks to save money. Their rationale was that people who had something to hide would refuse to agree to a background check and self screen anyway so why spend the money. At least that was the rumor. It's possible it simply happenened by default. We, like many councils, had a dearth of administrative support and paperwork processing was often late, incomplete, nonexistent, etc. They may simply have sat on a shelf so long, someone said why bother let's wait until next year and when no one came asking about it the practice perpetuated. To me that's a loophole. It might no longer exist, but it did and there are other ways the system is massaged. We've talked about a lot of them on this forum over the past year.

You made off cheap. My neighbor's free fuel enterprise ended with a helicopter ride. He's back to using heating oil now.

Call them and say if they want to go home with the awards tomorrow they need to come with a check or cash to give you to cover what is owed. If they can't do that, tell them you'll hand their son an empty envelope so that he is at least verbally recognized and when they get the money together, you'll get the awards to them. You don't ever want to publicly shame a kid because his parents didn't pay. Normally I would say treat them as a scholarship case but if you have already been fronting personal money to keep the pack going, then you can't take that on too. I don't know what their financial situation is but in some states Medicaid subsidizes certain youth memberships. I'm pretty sure scouting is one of them. Others on here may remember or know more than me.

I think that's exactly the problem with YP that Michael Johnson and the TCC are pointing out. Too much of it is local and open to interpretation and loopholes. I am guessing Johnson and the TCC would like to see your Council's policy nationalized.

Actually, they are not. I think it's just a question of wording. Unregistered adults may not be in charge of the entire trip, but they are quite frequently put or left in supervisory positions at times while on trips. This happens all the time at summer camp and on camp outs.

I would say diversity is almost as important as youth protection when it comes to irrelevancy and other issues, but not more.

I noted that too. I guess they only want diversity of opinions to a point.

Our district has a poly tech high school that offers those classes and STEM type academies for different pursuits like ag sci, pre med, engineering, computer sciences, etc.

Has it been a week yet??? Free Brittney!

Council mergers are not necessarily a bad thing. For one, one of the ongoing issues with scouting is how variable the experience is depending on what unit and council you are in and what kind of people are involved. While 'home rule' can be good it also has its downsides. Maybe some more integration and consolidation of struggling councils into more successful ones would be good overall for scouting although maybe initially painful for those affected by it.

The BSA could certainly immediately release the names of any individuals who were convicted. It could also separate out those who are in the IVF for financial, theft, or criminal reasons. An independent third party could establish criteria for whether names should be released for those abuse related situations that did not lead to conviction. I don't think the public particularly cares about the names of people who were listed because of financial malfeasance or a DUI.

I think one of the more interesting concepts that came out of Michael Johnson's statements was for the first time a senior member of BSA ackowledged that Scouting is a high risk activity when it comes to predators and child abuse. We've talked about it here on the forum but BSA has not even wanted to discuss that although it is pretty clearly a reality. I thought Vieth's outlining in black and white some of the reasons why was useful. It's why BSA can't defend itself by saying we are doing what everyone else is doing and more regarding YPT. The baseline for scouting has to be higher because of what it does, where, and with who.

There was just an incident from a camp this summer involving restroom cameras. The discovery of the cameras resulted in the perpetrator being caught, but a review of the cameras also captured multiple incidents of scout on scout sexual activity in the restroom. This kind of thing is obviously happening despite current youth protection policies. We don't know whether or not it was abuse -- it might have been consensual between two kids of similar ages and size -- but it was at minimum a youth on youth protection violation of concern. No parent wants to send their kid to a camp where that is occuring. Johnson is right to point this kind of thing out and it has to be reviewed in context of patrols and other situations where we put kids under the supervision of other kids. I've said this before but these kids are handed these roles with little formal training to help them understand how to be responsible for other kids or with any vetting of whether they should be in that role in the first place. Other youth organizations do this but scouting just assumes they can.

It is run more like a cult than a functional nonprofit organization.

I reached that point earlier than this, maybe a year ago, but found Johnson's comments validating about some of the deep concerns I have developed over the years about National and how it runs the program. In my estimation it has become a self affirming, self congratulatory out of touch cult rather than a functional, modern day nonprofit youth organization. I think there are good people involved. I think there are pockets where the program works well, but those pockets require a lot of alchemy to create and sustain. The program by itself, as administered by the National organization, cannot be templated in any reliably safe or uniform fashion. If you are fair, Johnson's words ring true about many of the concerns that have repeatedly been expressed on this forum. To some degree almost nothing he said should have been a bombshell to any of the jaded folks here other than the fact of his own appearance as a senior executive and the person who was hired to be the man in the white hat for BSA. It sounds like he left after it was shot off his head.

I don't think BSA is bad 100% of the time. I've loved parts of the organization. But it's also fair to note that many people who have viewed BSA in a favorable light over the years have also been those who have been interested in perpetuating some of the social issues BSA has had difficulty adapting to. A lot of those people left when gays and girls were welcomed but a lot still remain.

Parents ARE discussing youth concussions and injury rates in sports. That's part of the reason why US youth participation in sports is in decline, and in particular in football and soccer. On the other hand youth participation is up in baseball and basketball -- two sports not necessarily known for concussions. They happen, just not as visibly. One thing to consider is that scouting can be very insular. The people who are into it are often really into it, sometimes a little cult like, and it is often combined with church life, politics, world view, etc. Not so much the case with sports. As a result, it can be a bit of an echo chamber. If people outside of that world knows someone is heavily involved in scouting, most won't ask unpleasant questions or say derogatory or challenging things.

I feel like I've entered some kind of alternate reality with some of these comments. Yes, there are examples of places in BSA where it was true to it's own oath and law. However, Boy Scouts in general is not regarded by people outside of it as an example of a tolerant or inclusive organization. Over the years it has generally excluded or segregated people by race, gender, orientation, and religion. It has a history of being behind the curve on almost every important social issue. It allows this by unit to this day when it comes to religion and orientation. It also has a significant current issue with Native American appropriation that is embarrassingly behind the times. Look at the tourist trap level, wince worthy nonsense it sells online in its scout shop under Native American crafts and the regalia and activities of groups like Mic O Say.

Let's not give the moderators anything more to do. I don't know any of them, but to me it seems like they are doing a lot trying to keep up with the volume of posts over the bankrutpcy. Maybe we can just try to get less offended or not worry about tiny arrows. Some of it might be generational. For example being told to Google something isn't really a pistols at dawn comment, it's just functional. We're living in a world where High School reference libraries are being turned into multimedia coffee bars because the answer to virtually anything you want to research is at your fingertips. It's more like -- Don't believe me or like my source? Just go look it up yourself and see what you find.

This is about abuse in the Catholic Church in France but has some interesting parallels with US BSA case: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/france-catholic-church-report-abuse/2021/10/05/05ae5c22-254c-11ec-8739-5cb6aba30a30_story.html