yknot

I think this is going to be the heart of the problem. There are no signs that there is any kind of volunteer groundswell to support even a skeletal level of organized scouting. There are a lot of highly committed individuals, some even in pockets, around the country that will attempt to run local programs. However, I think liability and PR issues are going to make even that very difficult post bankruptcy. Things will survive for a few years, but long term it is probably not viable. What has been leaked out of the Churchill documents is very disappointing because so far there has been nothing innovative. I really think BSA has to stop trying to save itself and refocus instead on saving scouting. We have a Congressional charter. We envy 4-H, which is partially supported by the Department of Agriculture and run under its auspices. Why not try for a similar structure under the National Park Service. Everything we do with the exception of Duty to God components would fit well under the NPS. They already run scouting programs.

Well that makes perfect sense, but that's something that is pretty individual to you. It's not really an argument against allowing two female leaders for boy dens.

Does that come up for you much though as a leader issue? Never did for me other than maybe a random eww...

Interesting point. There are a couple other things to consider as well. It's not just that far fewer women are abusers, it's that the type of abuse they perpetrate is different. Profiles for female abusers typically include a woman who is participating in an abuse situation under the direction of a dominant male or a woman who is targeting an older child -- teacher/student type relationships. The Me Too movement has also shed a lot of light on the incidence of abuse in women and girls. Girls suffer abuse at significantly higher rates than boys: 1 in 4 vs. 1 in 6 by adulthood. Since abused children often grow into adult abusers of children themselves, fewer women being traumatized as girls may in turn lead to fewer adult female abusers, BSA, the Catholic Church, the US Gymnastics Team have been very high profile events highlighting this problem. A lot of other smaller and lower profile organizations are coming to grips dealing with child predation among their members as well. It may indeed result in significant changes to how youth organizations are run, but if this scourge is that prevalent, maybe that's not a bad thing. I don't know that the answer is to simply keep children away from unrelated adults though because tragically much abuse also occurs within the home, committed by relatives. One of the methods of protecting children has been to arm them with information about dangers, whether drugs or abuse, at younger and younger ages. I don't know that that is the right approach either because you eventually get to an age where you've put an image or a thought in a child's head that I don't think should be there in childhood.... I sense that I'm getting off on an tangent so I'm going to stop now.

In scouting, I think it's partly a practical reason based on biology. I don't know too many unrelated males who would be comfortable instructing a 12 or 13 girl on first time tampon use while on a hike or camp out. There really isn't anything similar to worry about with boys. It's also likely that if BSA was dealing with claims perpetrated by women, it would have a different policy. It will be instructive to see if any of the 95,000 claims that have just been filed involve women as perpetrators. If so, that might drive a change.

The statistical reason is that less than 5% of perpetrators are women and it's generally a different kind of abuse than we've seen in scouting. It's more often an older female taking advantage of a juvenile male. The other sad statistic is that while in BSA we are hyper focused on the horrific abuse of boys, in reality girls are five times more likely to be victims of abuse and the abusers again are almost exclusively male. Apart from the statistics, I think the practical reason BSA has allowed two women to take boys on outings is because if they didn't a lot of cub scout dens wouldn't be functional. I know things can vary regionally and change cyclically, but around me almost all the dens are run by moms and meet after school. Of course, future liability concerns may demand a change in that and the after school model is also changing somewhat as more families become two career.

I think if scouting survives it will be a much smaller organization. I think it's clear the only kind of scouting that will continue will be more family oriented experiences/camping because that's what millennials and younger want and liability insurance and issues will likely demand. I think it's clear we are headed to mixed gender because that is what millennials and younger want. It also just doesn't make any sense to try to run this bureaucratic/volunteer heavy organization with different groups of volunteers just to preserve the illusion of segregated units when that's not how many are operating in reality. I think there are plenty of boys who would still be interested in scouting even under the above scenarios. It will be different, but kids that like to camp and get outdoors will still want to do that. High school age boys that are into sports still do sports even if their parents come along. Any parent of a teen or young man knows there are ways to be there but also be invisible. The kids whose parents are ASMs deal with it just fine. The kids whose mothers are ASMs deal with it just fine.

I support what you are doing. Anyone who was abused in scouting should have filed. You and others like you who were truly hurt deserve closure or resolution, or at least as much as is possible. There are no good answers here for either children who were hurt or for the organization.

The vast majority of claims -- 85% -- have been filed by men aged mid forties to 50s, so many of the perpetrators as well as potential corroborating witnesses are likely still alive. An additional small percentage of claims have been filed by people younger than mid forties, so perhaps 90% may be subject to to some kind of reasonable validation. I don't know the specifics of how this assessment will be conducted, but in other situations things such as case clustering in time and or location could be considered as somewhat corroborating. My question though has been whether or how any perpetrators identified will be held individually accountable through this process.

The most tragic legacy of abuse scandals in both the Catholic church and scouts is that truly decent adults who want to reach out and help kids in need now often feel that they can't. Not only can't. Shouldn't.

I think that's the crux of it. Scouting was/is unique among other youth activities because of the way it separates a handful of adults in charge of a group of children away from family and community often in remote locations. There were also very few -- maybe no other -- youth activities that routinely included sleepovers away from home. I was in a 4H club that did routinely camp out in either tents, cabins, campers, out in the open, or just under a shed row or in some shed somewhere. However, whatever instruction or interaction with leaders was done during the daylight hours. There was no sitting around a camp fire with them getting sign offs. Once the day's duties were done, we were with our mates and it would have been odd for a leader to have any involvement with us other than to make sure we weren't running amuck. Having also been involved in the Catholic church, the access to youth was indeed as limited as you said and priests or nuns had to create their own opportunities to have access to children outside of CCD or altar practice.

Not really. It's s completely different locker room scene now -- half the kids wear shorts to school in February anyway and just change shirts -- plus before it really wasn't comparable with situations in scouting. Even back when kids showered after gym or in practice, it was a 3 minute deal with next period teachers or parents waiting. Not off camping at a facility in the woods with random adults. Pedophiles are everywhere no doubt but there are some characteristic reasons why scouting was such a buffet for them.

It's just a bad situation all around. Between the bad publicity and the bankruptcy spiking up fees, it's been tough. As has been stated, most other youth programs reduced or refunded fees in the face of offering reduced programming. BSA has increased fees, and that is a tough sell. It's also been very hard to accommodate varied expectations. Some families are completely spooked by in person activities even when outdoors; others are angry that more activities aren't being offered. Committees and leaders have had to grapple with the fact that they and their COs are potentially liable if someone gets sick and they are not following the most conservative guidelines.

I'm not sure where you are or what you do but I have never had anyone from our district or council do anything to ever help resolve any kind of contentious, abusive, or illegal issue. Abusive parents incensed that advancements were perhaps not moving quickly enough to jet their scout to Eagle? Upheld by Council. Incompetent or abusive council employees or volunteers? Upheld by council. Problems with possible embezzlement and CO involvement? No response or involvement from Council. It is as if they do not exist except for FOS time and for the very overworked and underpaid admin assistant who cheerfully processed our paperwork as best she could. Of all the paid positions at council, guess who council laid off this summer? The admin assistant.

"How" is indeed the issue. Do we want to remake the country or try to add in new colors between the lines. I'm all in favor of a radical re-envisioning of the system until it gets to the point where we are tearing down what created this amazing experiment in the first place. Because if we go, there is nothing much else left that holds the line.

I don't think it's just pod size, I think it is recognizing this is a highly contagious, airborne virus that is affected by atmospheric conditions. It's better to have 25 kids at an activity wearing masks and standing 12 feet apart in crosswinds and sunlight conditions than it is having 4 kids 6 feet apart without masks downwind of each other. We need to start thinking that way.

National can enforce. It can revoke charters. National is management. If management finds it has no way to compel councils to follow its rules, it can legislate new ones. National has relied on a hands off philosophy when convenient when confronted with something it doesn't want to or doesn't know how to deal with. It has confused volunteers by not being honest or transparent about why it is making program changes. There has been almost no communication from the Key 3 to the corps of the organization throughout this latest crisis. That is not good leadership. Perhaps the leaders would be spending less hours dealing with the morass if they were more communicative about their challenges. The thing I fear most is a triumvirate of not very effective leaders in over their heads attempting to navigate this morass in complete opacity. Blindly supporting a national organization that has an extensive history of not getting much right is not the way BSA will survive.

I've been concerned because the documented youth transmission cases that have occurred in our area have mostly been during outdoor sport practices, not in class and in school. In practice, even if they are doing socially distanced drills and eschewing locker rooms, they are not wearing masks. This virus does not like heat, humidity or sunlight, so as winter temps cool and become dryer. wear your masks and forget about 6 feet social distance stay 12 feet away even in open air.

I'm sorry to hear that you experienced this first hand and hope you are fully recovered soon. I know. Many people do not take this seriously. Be well.

A lot of our discussion on this thread and elsewhere on this forum is on what we all think should or should not happen with scouting. A common comment is that today's kids "need" scouting. However much many people here may believe that, I'm not sure that that is a clarion call to youth. I think we need to find out what kids and their families want or need from an organization like scouting. I wish we had some real, non BSA (meaning objective) data on why kids join, don't join, or leave. I know we all try to get information and feedback out of scouts whether in BORs or in trying to recruit around town but it's not enough. I also think when people know you are involved in scouting they don't always tell the truth because they don't want to offend you. I know I often hear one thing when I ask a kid or a parent why they are dropping out or not joining, but my sons often hear something else when they talk amongst themselves.

Those are exactly the kinds of questions BSA needs to be asking and researching. I would say 4H has survived because it hasn't been afraid to change and because it has remained relevant to an evolving youth market. It's much more elastic. You can say the same of youth sports and other youth organizations. BSA is pretty moribund.

I think this is an area worthy of discussion regarding how it may impact scouting going forward. Extended adolescence is an issue. Youth do seem less able to handle certain responsibility markers that prior generations were more adept with. However, youth today have greater and different pressures than older generations did. Just watching a 14 year old trying to navigate the virtual learning environment has been mind boggling for me. Can I depend on him to load the shotgun, hike 10 miles in snow, and bring back dinner? No. He'd be crying. Can I depend on him to figure out how to jury rig a hotspot when the internet goes down so he can still make class and I can work and bring home dinner? Yes. Different life skills, but just as responsible.

Fascinating. One adult Eagle's story from 1959, much later than 1948: ... "Gallagher started as a Tenderfoot at the age of 38." Perhaps this was regional? If this would encourage greater adult volunteer involvement,, support, and commitment, maybe it's not as crazy as it looks. It could have a special designation, such as Silver Eagle Scout. Again, I am just thinking in terms of what would help scouting survive, not what it means in a program sense. And here's where the contradiction comes into play for me: I don't agree at all with the way that the Eagle marquee has become monetized and marketed by BSA. I hate it, and I don't think it should be the point of scouting. However, it may be one of the few valuable assets a post bankruptcy BSA has left to help it rebuild.

I guess I'm not looking at this in a program/citizenship sense but in a marketing/future survivability sense. I also know I sometimes contradict myself when I do this. I continually point to other youth organizations that seem to be doing a better job of surviving than BSA is despite having the common struggle of having to engage with fewer and busier kids and families. One of the things that many of these organizations do is find ways to keep youth involved as long as possible and beyond into adulthood. The closest BSA seems to have is FOS and that is a straight out money ask. I think somewhere in here is an opportunity to do more -- just not sure what.

Just to try and circle this interesting discussion about scout membership age limits back to a historical context, I did find out that up until 1948 adults were able to earn Eagle Scout and up until 1972 Explorers could earn Eagle until they were 21. It is also interesting that in a handful of states the age of majority is not 18 but older. I wonder if anyone has any historical information on this. I can see the problems that YPT today has created with having older youth interacting with younger youth even if that took place within some kind of new structure. However, if scouting wants to keep scouting in the lives of people post the age of 18, it might want to take on the challenge at looking at ways to keep older teens, young adults, and adults feel more connected to the organization. For starters, looking at a way to allow high school seniors active in the organization even if they turn 18 before graduating. Many youth organizations have this kind of mechanism. In a way BSA already allows it because it allows a 3 month window for the Eagle BOR.