yknot

The Nassar case is troubling because it literally happened right in front of parents. To me it once again speaks to the risk created when the abuser is cloaking themselves in some kind of presumed trustworthiness -- a priest, a doctor, or a scout leader. I think the message is that a lot of damage has occurred in our case because of the BSA credo that a scout is trustworthy.

I think it has changed. - Cameras are everywhere -- buses, fields, field houses, parking lots, doorways, hallways, dumpster areas, fields, practice areas, gyms. Games are streamed. There is no streaming at camp grounds. - Most high schools and some middle schools have security on duty whenever kids are on the premises. Custodial staff today are trained in site security. School access is very limited and monitored - Overnight trips are part of travel and sports like swimming but generally your kid is staying in your hotel room with you. In my experience, most parents go. That's not to say that things still don't happen but people frequently point to other activities as being equally risky and they just are not.

BSA has more rules because of the kinds of activities it does with kids. Baseball doesn't really need two deep. The kids are hardly ever out of public view. They are on a field, usually with other adults around. Most fields, dug outs, field houses have surveillance cameras. Players are rarely away overnight. However, no one in their right mind would disagree with you that BSA has been unable to keep kids safe despite all the rules.

I wondered if that might be some kind of dystopian solution too but it does seem like there would be too much scorched earth for scouting to survive long term. I'm not sure how practical issues like liability insurance could be resolved. I'm also not sure about the public perception side of this. From a purely public relations standpoint, it would be better to resolve 83,000 claims at once even if some are questionable rather than to fully litigate 1000 or even 100 or maybe even 10 lurid, gut wrenching cases through the court system and mainstream media. The 83,000 claims are somewhat abstract in the public mind but even just a dozen fully litigated cases, with human victims and damning testimony, is what could really kill scouting for good in the U.S.

I think you know what I mean but I know it's easy to misunderstand each other in print. Instead of being clever, I'll be clear: I was using "Santa" as a euphemism for "Scoutmaster" because it's the same construct -- an adult that a child thinks he or she can trust turns out not to be trustworthy. However, it seems you are confirming with your response that you actually do believe the child victim bears some responsibility for his/her abuse through some perceived lack of maturity or ability to speak out...? Or have I misunderstood what you are saying?

A scout is trustworthy but that lesson starts with the adults who are there to guide him or her and teach them what that means. If a child who believes in Santa Claus encounters an adult Santa who abuses him or her, what reaction would we expect? Mute incomprehension and confusion would probably be the first reactions, followed by fear, shame, terror, horror... I don't see any actionable requirements on the kids here. They trust the adults around them to keep them safe, or at least that's what we tell them. If victimized, they would expect the adults in their lives to save them. And we failed.

I would be careful with that because it sounds like you are blaming the child victim and I don't think you mean to do that.

I hope you're right but I do want to point out that most of the growth, and interest, in scouting is in non first world countries. I'm not so sure WOSM cares all that much about the US. Also in general, even in third world countries, there is declining interest and support for organizations that are perceived as vestiges of colonialism. Scouting's connection to someone who fought in the Boer War in Colonial South Africa and was so associated with the British elite upper class does not augur well for the future given how social trends are going. It's a net negative and the only reason it hasn't been a bigger issue is because people really haven't looked. The general public knows nothing about WOSM but say "Imperialist" and they react right away.

We are all the Kool-Aid drinkers here, so we trend optimistic. Scouting is very difficult to understand and to administer compared to most other youth activities. I think there is a need for an outdoors oriented youth organization. I don't think scouting is it any longer. BP had a great idea for his time but times have changed. Maybe it's an opportunity for some other visionary to come up with a program that connects people to the world outside. I'm sure for awhile some vestigial scouting units will continue until they get sued or turned out but it won't last.

Thanks. Those are a great idea. I just ordered some. We've been making our own out of rubber bands.

I agree people can't seem to figure out how to wear a mask properly. However I think empirical evidence suggests that even poorly worn masks can help prevent transmission. The virus certainly seems to transmit more readily in settings where masks are not worn.

We don't know a lot about Covid in general but the risk of contact transmission appears to be low, especially outside. There has been apparent transmission among youth athletes of sports where no one on one contact or equipment sharing occurs, like tennis. Masks, and as you point out frequent hand sanitizing, still seems to be prudent at this point, which is what I think the OP was asking for opinions on. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html

There has been outdoors transmission even at outdoors sports practices so I think continued mask wearing for the time being is prudent. Kids forget and don't realize they are standing too close or they are downwind of someone who is infected. By the fall, it sounds like we'll have at least one vaccine available for kids 12 and up so that will also help.

Because we're not seeing headlines that 83,000 claims have been filed against YMCA or B&GC. It's actually more damning of BSA if claims occur in those organizations when they sponsor a BSA program. Consider that YMCA oversees 9 million youth and B&GCs 4 million youth annually compared to BSA.

I'm just thinking of all the small, rural UMC churches in our area who hosted units. Crumbling historic buildings and cemeteries, with small, dwindling congregations of maybe 10 to 15 elderly folks. A $10K ask would put them under. I'm sure it would be handled at a higher level, but then a lot of these congregations would likely be closed and consolidated. The only saleable asset they have would be a parsonage and once you sell that you can't really function.

I'm starting to get really worried about the Methodist church. Far as I know, they don't have a lot of property like the Catholic church.

The key thing with this virus appears to be distance, masking, and ventilation. Resident camps that had kids sleeping in cabins had issues last summer. Scout camps where everyone stayed in their own tent seemed to do surprisingly well. I think there is another layer of it in that the virus does not transmit well in sunny, dry, warm condition in the open air. It does transmit when the opposite is true, which can happen at camp. The rapid testing is not very helpful -- there are a lot of false negatives -- but it is better than a temperature check. You also need to be aware of wind conditions. I caught Covid despite being fully vaccinated and outside because I was 20 feet downwind of some maskless infectious people for about an hour. So, despite the fact that I was outside, despite the fact that I was vaccinated, I still got sick. Thankfully, it was mild and lasted less than 24 hours. But the bottom line is that this disease is very contagious.

It's not the same argument because you've changed the topic. We're not talking about boy scout fatalities vs. say, youth football fatalities, we are talking about sexual abuse, but it's interesting that you brought it up. Fatalities are also another matrix apart from abuse where scouting also does not fare well in comparison. Youth football incidents have also been tracked since 1931 in reporting similar to BSA's IV files. The difference? Football data has been comparatively transparent, and used to foster ongoing conversations and program modifications. We in BSA had no idea how many fatalities, let alone abuse cases, occurred in scouting each year, what the circumstances were, or what the recommended improvements were. In recent years, youth football has averaged about a dozen fatalities among 3-4 million participants. Other than headlines, since there is no standardized reporting, it is impossible to know how many scouts have died from scout related activities. As a point of comparison, though, with far fewer participants, 32 scouting lives were lost in the years 2005 to 2010 alone. The only information we get is the random appearance of some new "you may no longer do this" policy. We have got to stop defending BSA's inherent incompetence and organizational flaws if we ever want to see scouting back on its feet post bankruptcy -- assuming any aspect of it survives. I understand the instinct to defend that which you love but myopia like this will be fatal not helpful in my opinion.

You've nailed the attitude that I think is so counterproductive to ever resolving youth protection issues in scouting. There are too many who want to rationalize away the situation because they somehow believe scouting is somehow the victim or that the good that it does is worth the cost of the damage.

I think we've got to stop focusing on one thing. The IV files are just one symptom of a dysfunctional organization. There are a dozen things going wrong.

It's not that any organization is special, it's that scouting creates specific and unique risks. I don't know if you noticed but one of those 4-H reports is from 2007 and the other is not about sexual abuse at all, it's about a bunch of teenage counselors running their own fight club. There are not a plethora of 4-H reports. BSA should be expected to have the gold standard YP program because it is the only youth organization that at least monthly has unrelated adults take unrelated kids off to remote locations without cameras or any other kind of public supervision for lengthy, overnight trips. 4-H policies may vary by state, but they've never claimed to be the national gold standard. And in some states they exceed BSA standards. In California, for example, a 4-H leader has to call police if they find they've been left alone with a member because a parent is late for pick up. It's myopic and unproductive to think that BSA shouldn't have higher standards and be able to uphold them. But sadly, as we have all read on this forum, despite actually having national policies that are supposed to be consistently applied, we don't do so. YP is an inconsistent mess. For every SM who runs a tight ship it seems based on what is posted here there are dozens who don't. The other issue with BSA that it shares with the Catholic Church and other religious entities is that it claims the moral high ground. It's whole orthodoxy is based on the concept that a scout is trustworthy, so parents can be lulled into being more trusting when handing their children over to scout leaders. I completely agree that abuse of children is a societal problem. I completely disagree that that exonerates BSA in any way for what has happened in its organization. Child abuse can and does happen anywhere, but it clearly happens more in scouting. We provide a unique environment for it to occur. Until we are able to honestly confront that ugly fact, we can't really improve youth protection.

BSA is different by nature of what we do with kids and when and where we do it. I think you have to recognize that and understand it as a risk specific to scouting before you can make any headway with understanding why YP is such an issue. There is no huge issue in 4-H. There are very few cases reported involving 4-H leaders. No one's hiding them, they just haven't been reported. I'm sure there are some random adults attached to some random clubs that abused kids, but it's not occurring in the 4-H setting to the degree it does in scouting.

Since when do men and women of character offload responsibility to some government entity? What is scouting about if it isn't about seeing, knowing, and doing the right thing? I am growing impatient with this idea that it is never our fault because it was someone else's responsibility to tell us what to do. We ran the organization. We oversaw the kids. We knew what was happening. It was our job to keep them safe. We failed.

Oy, no. For example, 4-H has significantly more youth members than scouting and you will be hard pressed to find any reports of youth molestation in their ranks. The IV files were an incompetent effort and to some degree they are irrelevant except for the liability insurance question. The claim totals speak for themselves.

I don't think you mean what you are saying here. Because on some level, the IV files did identify and prevent additional abuse beyond the already mind numbing numbers. I don't think you are saying that having 160,000 kids abused would be worth continuing business as usual today. The BSA lost its soul when it did not realize what those growing numbers in the IV files meant.