PeterHopkins

On 10/12/2021 at 10:18 AM, Eagle1993 said:

That is how our GSUSA Troops do it.  There is 0% chance I can be near the kids without registering.

My Girl Scout troop as well. Adults cannot even drive children other than their own without being registered and background checked.

On 10/12/2021 at 9:55 AM, Eagle1993 said:

50% of abuse is from other youth ... that has started to be an increased focus, but I don't know if BSA ever made this public.  Also, some scouting orgs do not have 11 year olds in the same program as 17 year olds.  We have discussed this and I wonder if BSA had internal meetings.

This surprised me more than anything else in the letter. In recent versions of Youth Protection Training, youth-on-youth abuse is addressed, but it is not emphasized. Twenty years ago, I don't recall the subject being included in Youth Protection Training. If this is really true, this is something important that those who complete YPT should have known. It should have been emphasized to such an extent as to have made it unforgettable.

On 10/12/2021 at 9:55 AM, Eagle1993 said:

72 hour rule .. if BSA didn't follow their Youth Protection expert, why?  It would be good to see their internal discussions.  My guess is upsetting volunteers which probably won't look good.

I can take a guess as to why (which doesn't make it the right decision). Tigers would not be able to attend resident camp unless they had a registered (and background checked) parent with them.

15 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

Ironically, BSA is being sued as a result of allowing girls in Scouts BSA.

The BSA is being sued by GSUSA in an intellectual property dispute. If the program were still called Boy Scouts instead of Scouts BSA, there would be less of a case.

There have also been some who have been a bit too enthusiastic and called girls in Scouts BSA troops Girl Scouts. In my district, we were instructed at the roundtable never to do this. I'm not sure everyone got the message.

It took a while before the Girl Scouts of the USA caught up to Campfire Girls, which was started with assistance from some of the BSA's founders. Within GSUSA, some legacy organizational resentment still exists over the BSA's involvement with Campfire's founding.

21 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

We had a commissioner for them because they needed assistance just like every other unit, in some cases more. By the way, that was the most difficult job I have had in scouting, but also the most rewarding. 

You and I are not talking about the same thing. You're talking about a district that has widespread challenges that essentially define it as a ScoutReach district.

I'm talking about carving out portions of a district and essentially treating them as a virtual district. Again, I know this is not done with the intention to segregate along racial lines. However, it has had that effect.

I was an ASM at the 2005 National Jamboree. Our council sent four regular troops plus LDS and Sabbath observant troops. Every Scout in the regular troops was in a traditional troop. Over the course of 10 years in that district, I never saw a Scout at a camporee or other district event who was from a ScoutReach unit.

In my current district, two years ago, when we could recruit in person a schools, I asked the DE why there would be no Join Scouting Nights at several schools on the list. He replied that these are ScoutReach schools. One elementary school was less than 10 miles away from my pack's meeting place and les than three miles away from another traditional pack. Effectively, traditional Scouting was not being offered to these youth (unless they found us themselves on beascout.org.

I don't see any ScoutReach units at council Cub Scout events (but there haven't been many of those since I've been here). Nevertheless, as I described above, all anyone needs to do is look around at one of our lodge OA events, and it is painfully obvious that Scouting is severely underserving the black community in my council.

I don't think ScoutReach is implemented the same way in every council. It sounds like you did it right. Kudos to you. In the mid-2000s, when there was something called OA ScoutReach, I got some youth in my troop (I was an SM) to buddy up with a traditional troop in a severely challenged neighborhood. In exchange, I got the SM to do a presentation at a roundtable (I was a staffer). I got a taste of how hard your job must have been. No one in this troop, youth or adult, had a reference point from which they could make Scouting come alive at their weekly meetings. The troop camped sporadically and had little advancement. I think we gave them a push start. They showed up at the next district camporee.

On 10/8/2021 at 9:38 PM, T2Eagle said:

Scoutreach units are treated as a district because they operate differently then, and need different services and resources than a traditional units.  They use paid leaders to provide the program, and at least in my council are always a part of council events, and are certainly welcome at other district's events.  

I realize that these units need different support, and their unit and den leaders need someone in the council office to whom they report, but I haven't seen (in two different councils) these units integrated with traditional units.

25 minutes ago, HelpfulTracks said:

No we do not. Having been a Commissioner for such a district I can tell that is not what ScoutReach is at all. 

I agree that is not the intention. I also believe that ScoutReach make makes the program, at least a taste of it, available in places where it may not exist. However, the outcome it produces is segregation.

Yu just said yourself that you were a commissioner for such a district. Why are ScoutReach units grouped together and treated as a district? What would be so terrible about them attending a camporee with traditional units?

In addition to the noble goals of ScoutReach, I think there is a motivation to operate it in a way that maximize membership numbers. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the youth should be getting the full benefit of the program.

The largest city in my council, by far, has a roughly 65% black population. No one would ever guess that, if they looked around the room at one of our OA lodge events.

3 hours ago, skeptic said:

But somebody decided, out side the local council and unit, to make a scene and then National put the stupidity in motion.

As I recall, Dale was a very young ASM in his troop. Under, for lack of a better term, the don't ask, don't tell rules of engagement in place at the time, Dale stepped over the line. He brought photos of himself taken at an event that clearly indicated he was gay. One Scout went home and told his parents, who called the council, which, in turn, revoked his registration.

I am aware that there was never a don't ask, don't tell policy, but that was the de facto way in which things worked in many councils.

I believe Dale got help (and publicity) from the ACLU, and that turned it into a national story.

3 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Religion: I will note that B-P original Scout Oath NEVER included outright references to God and there are writing indicating he was horrified about how scouting in the U.S. was so tied to churches, a result of the intertwining from the start with the LDS and the YMCA movements.

B-P's original Scout Oath was

On my honour I promise that—

1. I will do my duty to God and the King.
2. I will do my best to help others, whatever it costs me.
3. I know the scout law, and will obey it.

7 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Was it "social activism" when BSA allowed for race segregated troops, districts, even COUNCIL until 1971?

Don't we still have segregated districts and simply call them Scoutreach now?

9 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

I think it is great they participated; however, I do not believe they should have associated scouting (by wearing their uniform) on their stance.

I respectfully disagree that this is a political activity as the BSA's rules contemplate. I would regard a political activity as one that supports a candidate or a party in an election. Perhaps I would also include supporting a yes or no vote in a referendum.

If the girls were meeting with a public official to try and et a traffic light installed at a busy intersection, would that be a political activity? I would say it isn't.

Similarly, I don't think that helping people register to vote or encouraging people to vote is a political activity. It becomes one when you advise them about what party to join or for whom to vote.

Just because this issue is controversial, and we can predict which of the two major parties might be in favor of removing books from the library and which would prefer to keep them on the shelves doesn't make this a political activity. There are certainly LGBTQ+ Republicans. The requests are likely coming primarily from folks based on religious beliefs. Well, there are Democrats devoted to their faiths as well.

The girls are trying to improve a process of government, and they're interacting with a public official in doing so. That's all they're doing.

8 hours ago, 1980Scouter said:

I agree 100% scouting has become like the federal and state governments.  Why do we need both national and local councils? 

This is like government in that they have federal agencies and states have the exact same agencies.  Ie federal EPA, state EPA.

Which government would you keep? Federal or state?

9 hours ago, johnsch322 said:

Question to current scout leaders. What do you tell current scouts and or their parents if asked about the current bankruptcy and the child sexual abuse in the past?

I'm presently a Cubmaster. We have not discussed this with the Cub Scouts, and I doubt any of them other than my daughter knows the BSA is in bankruptcy.

Oddly, as I was reading page 46 of this thread, my daughter asked me what it was about and then asked why the BSA is in court. So, I told her.

I have discussed the case with our pack committee, which includes a bankruptcy attorney. No one commented.

59 minutes ago, SiouxRanger said:

(What is "blood pudding?")

It looks like you want the answer to this question, so I'll oblige.

Blood pudding can describe a variety of sausages. Essentially, they contain animal blood, animal fat and a grain. Commonly, you'll find blood pudding made with pig's blood, pork fat and oats. In Ireland and the UK, this is often called black pudding. It is served as a breakfast food alongside your eggs. The sausage is sliced, and the resulting discs are cooked on a frying pan.

In the past, it was common to make blood pudding from beef or sheep. Instead of oats, barley is sometimes used.

Blood pudding is also sometimes prepared as a snack. The sausage is dipped in batter (similar to what would be used for a fish filet) and deep fried.

4 hours ago, johnsch322 said:

I gag at blood pudding and I was born in the UK LOL

I love blood pudding. I was born in Brooklyn and am a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland.

3 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

I volunteered for GSUSA and 100% agree.  I was told I could run cookie sales & I declined.  At overnights, I have never heard of a man attending.  I know one dad that attended an overnight and he had to sleep in his car in the parking lot far away from the girls. 

I'm starting my fifth year of being active in my daughter's Girl Scout troop. I've only stayed on two overnights. Many of the Girl Scout volunteers make male volunteers feel very uncomfortable, if you're too involved and want to camp overnight. So, I usually just do a drop and run.

There's also a significant contingent within GSUSA that really does not want male co-leaders in troops. They want men to play a supporting role only. One of the reasons I have my daughter in both programs is because I believe girls can benefit greatly from something that is specifically designed for girls and has many great female mentors. So, I actually agree with that line of thinking. But the program suffers. I volunteered to lead Brownies a bit more than three years ago (when my daughter was a Daisy). Instead, they decided to name someone else as co-leader with responsibility for our Brownies. I guess it was about 10% of the time I substituted for her, when she traveled for business. The Brownie leader was consistently underprepared. We've had a rotating door of girls joining and leaving at that age level. Two years ago at this time, we had three third graders. Only one of those remains. The Brownie leader didn't do a single thing online during the pandemic. In the spring of 2020, the Brownie leader said she could no longer manage the responsibility. I decided not to volunteer. The girls we have at that level (now fifth-grade Juniors) have just been enduring chaos and getting shuffled from one interim troop leader to another. I stand by ready to substitute if needed.

Many of the women in Girl Scouting (certainly not all) don't even want to hear male opinions, and they will read anything a man says as mansplaining. So, I mostly keep quiet.

Now I know how female BSA adult volunteers felt in the old days... and maybe some still today.

6 minutes ago, HelpfulTracks said:

There are not many organizations the size of BSA to start with, so that is one thing. 4H, Boys & Girls Clubs, Girl Scouts come to mind.

I am actually a GSUSA volunteer. There are background checks renewed every two years, but there is no specific youth protection training and no training at all that needs to be renewed on a continuous basis. The huge advantage GSUSA has in this realm is that the adult leaders are overwhelmingly female, and there is scant participation from fathers of the girls. When I attend monthly service unit meetings (roughly district roundtable equivalent), the attendees are typically 20 to 25 women and I. In the overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse cases, the perpetrators are male.

10 minutes ago, HelpfulTracks said:

Though, I have seen reports that the abuse rate is higher in sports teams and schools in general, it is still difficult to compare them to BSA has there are 1000's of the and each is on a much much smaller scale. 

Little League Baseball has a centralized parent organization. If abuse has taken place there on a wide scale, I would expect to see several class-action suits. The publicity would wreck their television contract with ESPN. The paucity of overnight trips in Little League Baseball means far less opportunity for evildoers to abuse children. That's true of all sports. So, if the abuse rate is truly higher, then Scouting has protected its youth much better, even if much better isn't really enough.

14 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

If BSA can show in a state court case they took all due diligence all reasonable precautions to prevent the abuse (and it happened anyway) that could be a sufficient defense to a negligence claim.

So, 20 years ago, those of us who were volunteers were watching 90-minute videos every two years as our Youth Protection Training. The experts who appeared in those videos gave the BSA lavish praise as a leader in this area. If such praise was truly warranted, one would think the BSA would be immune from claims that its neglect led to abuse, but that isn't the case.

A Scouter in my district in the 1990s was convicted for abusing his Scouts. He was a Scoutmaster and would routinely invite the senior patrol leader to his home for planning discussion, and that gave him the opportunity to commit crimes. He clearly violated the one-on-one contact rule that already existed at that time. I have no idea whether there was a civil proceeding involving the council or the BSA. There were no background checks at time time, but no red flags would have shown up anyway. All that was needed were three references on the adult application, and I don't believe anyone actually follows up on those. The perpetrator had been a Scout in the troop in the 1970s and 1980s.

A background check would not have been unreasonable in the 1990s, and following up on the references on the application doesn't seem like an undue burden. So, I suppose that even though doing those things would have come up with no reasons to deny the perpetrator the opportunity to volunteer, the fact that it wasn't done is the key element.

When I was a senior patrol leader in the early/mid 1980s, I routinely went to my Scoutmaster's home for planning discussions as well as planning on my Eagle project and merit badge work. He was less than 10 years older than me. His father was usually there, but sometimes not. I also went to the homes of several merit badge counselors who lived alone. I was never victimized. However, had I been, I can clearly see that the BSA did virtually nothing to prevent it. Once we get to 1989, with the introduction of the Youth Protection regime, we see something being done, but it appears that follow-up and oversight are inadequate.

Since I value your insight on this, is the BSA doing enough today to avoid rising to the level of being negligent? When I turned in my most recent volunteer application in 2018, I doubt anyone followed up with the references listed. I wonder whether requiring the references creates more exposure for the BSA than deleting the requirement from the application would. If you set procedures and don't follow them, that is sometimes worse than not having the at all. I know the chartered organization is supposed to follow up on that, but I doubt most CORs know that. They probably think the council will d it, when the application arrives in the registrar's hands.

So, aside from requiring references be checked, do you think there's anything more the BSA needs to do?

@CynicalScouter - I am a Cubmaster of a pack chartered to a Catholic church in a diocese that has already gone through its bankruptcy. I'm coming up on three years there. I spent a few years with a troop chartered by a Catholic church in a different diocese 20 years ago. I've been other places in between.

I don't feel like the oversight of the diocese is particularly robust. They ask us to get separate background checks at the pack's cost done by a contractor they chose. There is a formula that determines the number of background-checked adults we need present for activities based on the number of youth in attendance. This means we have registered Scouters who have not gone through the extra vetting. It was fairly expensive for a small pack like ours. The investigator charged more for my background check, since I lived in Indonesia between 2011 and 2015. He said he needed to subcontract the work to someone overseas, Since we only needed three background check (out of 10 registered Scouters), we did it for me (as Cubmaster) and two den leaders.

There is a video all volunteers are supposed to watch about keeping children safe. I watched it. I doubt others have. The mechanism to provide the completion certificate doesn't work. So, I cannot prove I watched it. Therefore, there is no way to audit any records we might have about compliance with the requirement. It's been more than two years that there has been no ability to generate a completion certificate. I watched it a second time about a year ago, and it still didn't work.

From the perspective of evaluating how well their system is working, the only thing my diocese is doing that wasn't done 20 years ago is making requirements, the completion of which cannot be verified. Due to previous pack leaders leaving, we went at least a year and a half without enough background-checked volunteers. No one noticed. Our compliance is essentially voluntary.

At least in my diocese, there might be public reporting, but there has been no substantial improvement in how the safety of children is truly being managed.

I have a question for the lawyers in the room.

Is it possible for the BSA (or any youth-serving organization) to have youth protection rules so robust that they could successfully defend an action in a state court? To be clear, I am not saying that is an appropriate response to a victim. What I'd like to know is whether a youth-serving organization as a respondent in civil litigation could be held not liable, because the plaintiff is unable to show the organization was negligent, because the organization did everything it could have done to prevent the abuse.

I expect the answer may vary from state to state. I'd just like some opinions of how this might play out in the states in which lawyers on this thread practice.

31 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

Yeah.  Umm ... Can you provide a parallel example from other youth serving organizations? 

First, my post was primarily an attempt to intervene in the communication problem @CynicalScouter and @HelpfulTracks seemed to be having. They both appear to be of good intentions in my view, and I didn't like seeing CynicalScouter's message get lost. The solution I described was my impression of CynicalScouter's wishes, not a creation of my own. I'm not convinced the BSA needs that level of pubic disclosure, but it certainly needs some.

That being said, no other youth-serving organization has yet been identified to have this problem to the level the BSA has. We may someday find that this issue is far more prevalent in other organizations.

While I think the BSA has separated itself from other youth-serving organizations (in a bad way), I don't think it is fair to compare what happened in the BSA to the way many Catholic dioceses dealt with child sexual abuse. They actively enabled it by reassigning priests to other parishes, where they could have a fresh start... and find new victims. I haven't yet heard of a case where the BSA thought the best response to an allegation of abuse was to simply move the Scouter to another troop. Perhaps it happened, but I haven't seen or heard it.

What i do know is that the BSA has lost some of the trust and confidence of the general public that it once had. Without that, the movement is rendered incapable of accomplishing its Mission. The best way I know to address that is transparency. I just don't know how much detail is useful to parents in making a decision to sign up their children for Scouting,

Transparency will help restore the public's trust and confidence. The BSA should act like and appear to be a leader in youth protection, particularly given its past problems. That cannot happen by remaining opaque. If you hide what is happening, how can anyone tell the extent of the problem or that you are doing something about it?

I don't think parents expect there to be zero risk in activities in which their children engage. Tragic accidents can occur during any physical activity. Sexual predators can be highly skilled at masking their intentions and carrying out their crimes stealthily. But my hope is that a web page that discloses the number of youth each council serves and the number of reports of abuse it received will appear negligible to parents, and they will judge the risk to be acceptable.

Perhaps some qualitative analysis would be useful as well. For instance, of the total reports received, what youth protection guidelines were violated that provided the opportunity for abuse? This would allow the guidelines to be improved. Emergence from bankruptcy should not result in a static set of rules imposed by the court. Rather, there needs to be continuous, ongoing improvement to the framework. Identifying weaknesses in the guidelines is needed to make that happen. After all, the abusers do that. Shouldn't the BSA do it as well?

24 minutes ago, HelpfulTracks said:

I read what you wrote. I stand by my post.

I don't want to speak on behalf of @CynicalScouter, but I've read many of his posts on multiple threads in this forum. I think the exchange you and he have had in this thread has resulted in a communication breakdown. You're not getting the message I think he's trying to send.

The BSA has been opaque in its dealings with the general public throughout its history, and it remains so to this day. CynicalScouter did some research and found that many youth-serving organizations list their board members on their websites, and the information is easy to find. Since the tax returns of the BSA and its local councils are public documents, lists of board members can be found there, but only if one knows where to look.

In 2021, the opaqueness is a bad look. It really should come to an end. Identifying decision makers is just one of many areas where we see it.

In the context of child sexual abuse, the BSA currently acts as if it were still the 1920s, when it first recognized the issue. Back then, there were no mandatory reporting laws and no Good Samaritan laws that protect reporters when abuse claims prove false. Had the BSA (or anyone else) reported abuse in the 1920s, and no conviction resulted, the accused could have successfully sued the reporter for slander.

In the early days, the BSA did what it could in creating the confidential file with the goal of preventing perpetrators from registering in the future. Even if it didn't always work, the effort was made, and it was commendable given that the undertaking required management of paper files and matching up handwritten leader applications.

At some point, that system became less than adequate. Mandatory reporting laws should not have been the trigger to start reporting. Good Samaritan laws should have pushed that button. It seems that, in some cases, that didn't happen. Everything remained in the confidential files.

We're left today with a system that might have been partially upgraded by technological advances and compliant with mandatory reporting but remains opaque largely as a consequence of organizational legacy. Although we promote change as something good at Wood Badge, we need to recognize that there's a natural tendency to leave things as they are.

The 1920s system needs to look more like something suitable for the 2020s. Given there have been well over 100,000 victims (with over 82,000 claimants, it doesn't take much of a leap of faith to assume there are more than 18,000 more who are deceased or simply decided not to file claims), the opaqueness with which the BSA addresses this issue need to come to an end.

Here's what I think it would take for CynicalScouter to begin to believe the BSA is taking youth protection seriously:

Each council should have a web page that is easily linked from its home page. That page might read: During 2020, we proudly served xx,xxx youth members. While it is our goal to keep safeguards in place that minimize the risk that a youth will become a victim of abuse while participating in Scouting activities, some participants may deviate from the barriers to abuse set by the BSA and perpetrate crimes against our youth members. The following summarizes incidents of sexual abuse during Scouting activities reported to us during 2020:

• Number of reports xx
• Number of reports referred to law enforcement xx
• Cases referred to law enforcement that resulted in prosecution yy
• Cases prosecuted that resulted in conviction zz
• Cases prosecuted that resulted in acquittal aa
• Cases prosecuted that are still pending bb
• Cases referred to law enforcement in prior years that resulted in conviction during 2020 cc
• Cases referred to law enforcement in prior years that resulted in acquittal during 2020 dd
• Reports during 2020 with accusations of rape ee
• Reports during 2020 with accusations of other felonies ff
• Reports during 2020 with accusations of misdemeanors gg

THAT is what CynicalScouter (I think) means by reporting. (If I got it wrong, I hope he will politely let me know. I think HelpfulTracks is sincere about wanting to address this, and we should take this opportunity to get him to run this up the flagpole.)

Considering the road the BSA has been down on this issue, the faith of the general public cannot be restored without complete transparency. Assuming the reorganized BSA emerges from bankruptcy and gets past the pandemic, this won't go away until the BSA looks open and honest about it. In 1921, that was not possible. In 2021, it should not take a court order to make it happen.

1 hour ago, elitts said:

The problem with this idea is that it sets the bar of acceptable at "whatever no one is uncomfortable with" and that's a standard that isn't functional.  I wouldn't support a membership requirement for OA (or anything else) that was based upon a willingness to be shirtless in public but I draw the line at not allowing those who ARE willing to appear shirtless to perform or appear that way because we don't want some kid to feel excluded.

Well... I said in my post that i think the language can be improved.

The intention with my words was not to set the bar at anything that is comfortable for everyone. However, tweaking may be necessary, since you read it that way (and others may as well). The points I want to make are

• Adults and other youth (thanks @BAJ) should not be requesting, suggesting or directing Scouts to remove articles of clothing in the absence of a legitimate program, safety or first aid reason.
• I see a compromise of a Scout's modesty as the Scout ending up showing more skin after an adult or other youth has coerced him or her to remove an article o clothing than was the case before. My intention was not to give a free pass in situations where the Scout might have no bashfulness whatsoever, because there is really no way for the adult or other youth to know that. It is the request, demand or suggestion that is the key.
• We can't end up with adults being unable to tell Scouts they need to change to go swimming. Some Scouts may lack the maturity or common sense to remove wet socks, and adults may need to be able to suggest they do so. If a Scout is injured, it may be reasonable to ask the Scout to remove his or her shirt, so treatment can take place. It's hard to imagine every possible scenario, and I wish we didn't need to be explicit with such a rule. It should be common sense. Unfortunately, that isn't the case.

3 hours ago, BAJ said:

(though I would add “and other Scouts” after “respected by adults.”)

I agree with this, particularly given the age range of Scouts BSA youth.