yknot

I don't totally disagree with you. Frankly, sports were where my sons found real character development and leadership training. Far more so than in scouts ironically and sadly. However, sports does not market itself as a morals based, character building enterprise. Scouts does. It doesn't even really market itself much as an outdoors pursuit anymore. Recruitment and promotional materials for football, baseball, soccer, etc., mention good sportsmanship, leadership, etc., but everyone knows the reason they are on the field is to play the game. Scout recruitment materials cite the value of attaining Eagle. Citizenship. Do a Good Turn Daily. The Scout Oath. Honor. Duty. Trustworthy... Everyone knows the reason you are in scouts is because you believe in those things that the organization supposedly stands for. That's why these abuse cases are so especially egregious.

I keep running across viewpoints on this forum that scare me.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you trying to rationalize that a pedophile was actually a really good guy at heart because you were somehow lucky enough that he did not target you? Pedophiles use kindness and concern as a way to disarm and attract children. Surely you've heard this before? Affection and kindness among normal families and people does not lead to or mask pedophilia. Just because you come from a family that was demonstrative does not mean they were potential pedophiles.

Yes, that too.

I think BSA does bear liability. Certainly over the past 20 years we've learned that the victimization of children is far more insidious than previously understood. But the difference between scouting and youth organizations like sports is that BSA marketed its entire existence as being set on a higher moral plane. Parents might have been more cautious with their children in sports simply because there's no moral code espoused other than good sportsmanship. Coaches and beer are almost synonymous. Parents expected their children to be safer in scouting, because the scouting principals virtually guaranteed that supervising adults would be morally straight. The organization knew this wasn't true, but nowhere along the line did it modify its marketing messages.

Especially so in BSA it seems where the top leadership does not appear to have any corporate experience outside scouting. It's a very insular organization warped by its own mythology.

I would say that it's likely that some pedophiles are able to compartmentalize and have more normal relationships with children that are not suitable targets for one reason or another much the same way serial killers and other psychopaths do. Ted Bundy had a long time girlfriend. The BTK killer had a family, yet he killed a family. I would also say that those other relationships are also part of the pathology because the perpetrator uses them to help hide or cloak his or her true nature and intentions. Pedophiles are frequently cited by incredulous bystanders as someone who seemed to love children. You were groomed by your 7th grade teacher. You just would have no reason to recognize it as such.

Do you have to provide a COI to meet in any of those places?

So true. Few understand how BSA works and few people get involved in anything outside of their kid or unit. I have been reporting to the units I'm involved with about some of these developments and they are humorously dismissive of it. They believe National and what they have been hearing from Council and can't envision anything happening to scouting.

I sit in the middle of three councils and get all their communications. They have all been saying that the National case won't affect local scouting and that funds raised would stay with the councils. A couple of them did informational sessions around the time of the filing and said something similar -- that there were a handful of cases they were concerned about. To be fair, the one council was proactive. They intended to sign on and had mapped out a plan as to how they could make what they thought to be a substantial and generous contribution if it came to that and still survive. They felt it was their duty to do so in order make things right for the children who had been abused in the past in their council. The plan however did not include selling camps. The contribution earmarked also was nowhere near a million dollars. Apparently there were also a number of cases they were unaware of because the TCC exhibit lists almost 200 for them. I think some councils have been very reassured by what little communication has come out of BSA and are going to be blindsided by this. They will probably be in denial.

I understand what you are saying but almost all of us on this forum are looking at things from our scouting perspective when that is not the perspective that counts. We're different from a lot of volunteer programs because, fair or not, virtually no one trusts us and the coming headlines are only going to make that worse. We have to be like Cesar's wife.

What this thread illustrates for me is that it's clear that BSA's YP program is pretty problematic. I don't know if analyzing the program and any known statistics is part of the bankruptcy/reorganization process but any critic could easily prove that it's ineffective, inconsistent, and haphazardly applied. As important, if BSA does survive bankruptcy in some ways and continues to use a similar YP program without fixing it, there are bound to be more cases.

Can I just clarify, are you talking about if the scout is out running by himself without two leaders present or are you talking about if he is running with a scout buddy without two leaders present? Or both? Also, who do you think would be liable if a scout went out for a run without supervision or if two scouts decided to go on a run together without supervision? Would it be the SM and the Committee or the MB Counselor? Finally, in your unit, how does this policy get discussed? If you are the SM, do you tell your unit that scouts cannot independently work on MB or rank requirements without two deep adult leadership, or does that come up during SM conferences? Do you refuse to sign off, or do you sign off and tell them not to do it again?

Neither my Council nor any of the three Councils near me follows your definition of a scout activity. Individual scouts routinely pursue achievements and MB components on their own. They are also free to buddy up with a friend from the same patrol, a different one, another troop, etc., to work on advancement. If boy A jogs down the street to meet boy B to go for a run for Personal Fitness, they do not schedule it with the SM and two leaders do not trail them down the road during the run.

OK, well in my Council we can't do that. It's two deep at all times. We send four adults to summer camp. Under that definition, anything a scout is doing is then a scouting activity. A scout attends a town council meeting for Citizenship in the Community would then require two adult leaders to attend with him. Do your units send two leaders to town council meetings with scouts that are working on that merit badge?

Also, just to answer the second part. I know scouts leave scouting because it's more fun to do things without it but it's not just having two adults along that makes it a drag. Many components of the program, from the uniforms that a lot of kids don't like to the homework like aspects of many of the rank requirements and badges to the long boring meetings and ceremonies also contribute to that. It's not just because of YP. That's my point. I understand it's part of it, but it's not the only reason why scouts is losing kids. and if we continue to get stuck on that like a canoe on a dry river bed, we're never going to get anywhere.

Is that for real, lol? Is there an actual reference for that in YP or G2SS? I know I am not supposed to be the lone adult with any youth as you note but I have never heard that kids can't ever do anything together with a friend in a non patrol group to work on requirements and have it count. Scouts in our units do it all the time. For example, the Cycling MB clearly states use the BSA buddy system and it's not unusual for older scouts to meet up for a ride and work on this. Friends working on Personal Fitness at the same time will meet up for runs without towing two adults in their wake. Same with Sports MB., etc. etc.

So you are saying that once a kid joins scouts, he can no longer call up a scout friend and say 'let's go on a hike' unless two leaders accompany them? This is news to me, but if so, then yes I would say adult supervision is overdone, because a basketball team member can definitely call up a teammate and say 'let's go shoot some hoops' without having coaching staff accompany them. However, I don't think that's the case. If you are saying having adults involved is a demotivator for kids, that is also wrong, because plenty of kid activities have some degree of adult supervision. I am also not aware that kids are leaving scouts in droves to do scouting elsewhere. Where? Has Trail Life suddenly gained 400,000 kids? The time period of growth for scouts -- the 1960s -- was due to many factors including demographics and a lack of other opportunities. To try to pin the failure of scouting solely on the addition of YP measures is silly. Predators didn't suddenly discover BSA in the 1960s. If you review the history of predation in scouting, you will find documentation that it began almost immediately after its establishment in the very early part of the 20th century. I don't know where these arguments are going or why they persist but it seems like insisting that YP ruined scouting ignores all the other problems with it. Does anyone really believe scouting would have survived to the 2020's if it had ignored YP in the 1990s or taken it less seriously?

I don't know what it is like in your state but in my state we've had the best luck with the pharmacy program at CVS, Rite Aid, etc. CVS in particular seems to drop vaccine appointments at 4 a.m., 5 a.m., 5:30 a.m. We've been able to get multiple vaccine appointments for ourselves and others this way. I keep hearing people say they started checking early in the a.m. but in our neck of the woods even 6 a.m. can be too late to grab one. Just FYI for your scouter friends. I'm getting my second Moderna today. Hoping I'm functional tomorrow. Got a lot to do...

Interestingly, elephants and a growing irrelevance to what audiences of today seek eventually brought about their bankruptcy.

That's interesting. To me though this means the BSA structure is organized around the wrong customer, because of course it has to be the scout. For example, Little League isn't structured around meeting the needs of local ball clubs, it's structured around meeting the needs of the players. It's rules are the rules, and the local clubs follow them. If a ball club has a hard time finding umpires or doesn't like using them, it doesn't get to still run accredited games just because they want to run their own program. Little League enforces its rules in order to provide a comparable experience for all players in the League no matter where they are.

A scout doesn't need an adult to call up a couple buddies and go for a hike, or go online to order something, or go to the scout store and buy whatever he needs to do a merit badge or requirement either. I'm not sure what you are talking about. There's no difference. Yes, high school captain's practices are one situation where kids are more on their own but even then they really aren't and that is hardly the norm for the millions of kids in sports. Most of the time there are multiple coaches, officials, parents involved in everything. And 4-H? I never did anything with less than two leaders around. And at fair time, there were rafts of additional adults involved in supervising everything we were doing, from judges, to committee members, to veterinary and animal welfare staff. Are you kidding me, lol? I was talking to a friend involved in 4-H in another state and they have to call law enforcement if a parent is late and leaves them alone with a kid. Could you imagine having that being mandatory in BSA? And yet, 4-H has almost 7 million members. One thing they've done is a lot more independent research on why kids join or leave 4-H, which is something BSA has never done.

You could say that's due to YPT. However, you could also argue that's due to a host of other reasons like changing demographics, a rise in other youth activities, and BSA's own ham fisted reactions to emerging social issues. It could also be because of the nonstop marketing of advancement to Eagle over outdoor fun. A lot of older kids drop out once they Eagle or because they are not into advancement. I don't see how adult involvement is the deterrent because then how do you explain why things like sports, robotics or 4-H are so popular. If BSA hadn't implemented YP measures, we probably wouldn't be talking about this today because we'd have zippo members. Liability concerns certainly helped drive that but once BSA realized it was a buffet for child predators, it had to act.

True. But that is ancient history. Some version of two deep has been around since the 1980s. It predates me. Scouting was able to function fairly well for more than 40 years with it. I've never known scouting that wasn't two deep, but I've still seen plenty of units that are almost completely scout led. No, they can't go off and do Lord of the Flies in the woods, but they can still be fairly independent. It seems like a useless point to keep grumbling about. It's not like it's going to go away. It's not like it's going to become less restrictive. It's very likely that some additional requirements may be added. There's obviously still issues with it as have been discussed here. While it's not the sum of what we are, like it or not our entire program will be judged on whether we really are the gold standard of YP. However, without data, functional IT, consistent application, oversight, etc., etc., we clearly can't say that. And as someone else mentioned, the nature of what we offer really demands that we be head and shoulders above the rest on this subject.

I think we minimize YP at our peril. All the quandaries outlined here are why many critics claim BSA should not exist -- because it can't keep youth safe. I also don't understand the complaint that YP ruined scouting. What's the big deal about having at least two adults along and that they be trained. I think it's more G2SS that has clipped wings.