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Youth Protection In The Digital Age.


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We disagree.  I posted my reasoning that "policies" were compulsory.

 

In this case, BSA says:

 

The BSA has adopted the following policies for the safety and well-being of its members. While these policies are primarily for the protection youth members, they also serve to protect adult leaders. Refer to the Guide to Safe Scouting, contact your local council, or email youth.protection@.org  for more information.

. . .
 

§                       Another adult leader should be copied on any electronic communication between adult and youth member.

 

Violations of any BSA's Youth Protection policies must immediately be reported to the Scout executive.

 

Given that this is an official BSA policy statement, I don't believe that you can take much solace from the use of the "should" word, especially given the immediately following language: "Violations of any BSA's Youth Protection policies must immediately be reported to the Scout executive."

 

BSA's designated "expert" has recently posted at Bryan's place:

Youth Protection policies extend into cyberspace. There should be no one-on-one online or digital activities (games, social media, etc.) or electronic communications. Leaders should include or copy a parent or another leader in all online communications, ensuring no one-on-one contact exists in text, social media or other forms of online or digital communication.

 

So the expert has ratcheted down from "another adult leader" to " a parent or another adult leader."  Baby steps towards rationality.

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As I have said before. YPT has been mis-titled.  I do not follow certain procedures in order to keep kids safe, I do it to keep the police off my front porch with a warrant.  I have been working with

Interesting, while this is not mentioned in the Guide to Safe Scouting it is mentioned in Barriers to Abuse Within Scouting.  See the last bullet point.  Got to love the inconsistencies.   http://ww

If a third person indeed must be party to every telephone communication, we have to hang up if a Scout calls to arrange a MB meeting or hang up if only the Scout answers a telephone call to his number

Anyone else think we have created a Mass Hysteria about nothing.....I am being to wonder if Scouting Can survive another 100 years in today's paranoid..

 

Are Leaders Expected to be rude if they run into a Youth at a School Activity...or at Wal-Mart or Gas Station...Look They were 1 on 1 ...

Will Scouters be required to wear Body Cameras to ensure no 1 on 1 is actually Happening....

 

America is becoming a Legislative Mess...

 

Working in a State Prison I have to deal with the Consequences of P.R.E.A ( Prison Rape Elimination Act) which sounds find and Dandy...But Offenders use it to Bring False accusations against Officers....Now They Require a 90 Day Follow Up....During that 90 Day Follow Up Period..The Officer is not allowed to work around that Offender and Even if it is Discovered that the Allegations are Untrue the Complaint will stay on your Permanent Record...

 

Like others Back in My Youth...I rode to some meetings or Activities with an Adult Leader..I went to My MBC Home alone...I walked to Scout Meetings and Home After Dark..I even went to a Scout Master's Home and worked for $2 and Hour to pay my Way to Summer Camp when I was to young to get a "real job"

 

Won't be long and No One will want to Volunteer for anything. 

I guess this is why More and More Traditional MBC are disappearing and why Merit Badge Colleges are being held..for fear of being sued

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People trust their kids to day care providers no matter who they are as long as they are available, but...

 

People trust their kids to babysitters who are neighborhood kids and are handy, but...

 

People trust their kids to teachers in the schools because they will be arrested for truancy if they don't, but ...

 

People trust their kids to church workers because they have a higher calling to morality, but...

 

People trust their kids to sport coaches because it helps build teamwork and leadership, but...

 

But those d__m SM's well, there's a different story altogether.  No buts about it...

 

Who get's the press?  All do, but it doesn't make any difference.

 

People aren't paranoid, they are selectively paranoid.

 

I teach my boys about abuse in a different fashion.  I simply put it, "If for any reason you feel FEARFUL around another person, including me as your SM, because of something we said or did, tell someone.  If they don't listen tell someone else,  Keep that up until someone listens.  If NO ONE LISTENS then call 911, they have to listen!f"

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 If a leader was being inapproriate in e-mail or text communications with a scout, unless both parties delete the messages, one of them will have it.  Even if text and e-mail messages are deleted, if there is an accusation and it's taken seriously, there are often ways to retrieve the messages.  Certainly copying them to someone else or to a blind mailbox makes retrieving things easier, but I suspect in most instances, it's going to be overkill.

 

I totally agree.  The ASMs in my troop will wonder why I'm sending them texts that they are not a part of.

 

Text from Scout to SM: "Jack is sick.  Who is buying Grub?"

Text from SM to Scout and 3rd party ASM: "You're buying the food."

Text from Scout: "Okay."

Text from ASM: "What food?  I'm not on this trip!"

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Maybe it's OK if you use an analog telephone. I still have one sitting to my left. "Western Electric. Bell System Property."

You're sitting in 1984? ;)

 

Our SMs email is an alias. It copies an ASM automatically. Any incoming email is be default two-deep. Replies require the adult to manually copy an adult. We copy parents by default. All parents required to provide an email at registration. No email no registration.

 

Text messaging is not allowed. Replies are copied to parents reminding the scout texting is not allowed.

 

Phone calls are always on speaker phone with an adult in the room otherwise I'm "busy" and they need to call me back when they (or i) have an adult present.

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An answering machine is nice.  Leave a message so I know what's going on.  End of discussion.Basically the only person that ever tries to contact me electronically is my SPL.  His grandmother is my ASM.  End of discussion.

 

If the troop is boy-led, patrol-method, why is there a huge need to have everyone talk with the adults?????  They work it out and leave the SM a message.  It's not all that hard.+

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JoeBob, just tell the ASM, look, you are going to be getting some copies of emails that don't apply to you. Don't worry about it. It's necessary to comply with a warped interpretation of youth protection by some guy at National.

 

Or words to that effect. :)

 

I am going to do something similar.

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JoeBob, just tell the ASM, look, you are going to be getting some copies of emails that don't apply to you. Don't worry about it. It's necessary to comply with a warped interpretation of youth protection by some guy at National.

 

Or words to that effect. :)

 

I am going to do something similar.

 So now I have to add a line in each text about whom I'm am really sending the message to?  Instead of a quick "yes" being sufficient to answer a question, I'm going to have to pull off the road and compose an elaborate E-pistle to multiple recipients...

 

What am I missing here?  How does having a 3rd party recipient add any protection to either adult or scout?

 

I'll wait for this interpretation of YPT to work its way to me through the training.  Hopefully by the time it gets officially communicated, there will have been enough wasted electrons for common sense to become involved.

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Why do we have any obligation whatsoever to comply with or even acknowledge a blog from new.scouter.com? Is there now a provision in the membership application requiring us to monitor and obey unofficial blogs from BSA? Do tour plans now call for me to scour the Internet for opinions of unknown BSA employees?

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The statement is published by Scouting Magazine, the official publication of BSA for Scouters, and is by "Michael Johnson, Youth Protection Director for the Boy Scouts of America."   

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Once again I bring the dynamic of self protection into the fray.  Everyone's all in a tizzy about this whole system of digital cyber YPT.  Okay. not a problem.  Every email I send goes into my sent email box.  Every email I get goes into my inbox.  Open a sub-directory on a major server and save everything you get related to scouting into it.  I have one for my troop and one for district/council emails.  I also have historical emails from my two prior troops I served in..

 

Police show up saying I have been cyber bullying some scout.  No problem.  Give them your email name and password and let them compare what you have to anything the boy has on his computer that he doesn't have to what you have meticulously documented since day one.

 

I worked at a company for 13 years and documented and saved every email I ever received.  More than once, a he said, she said argument was settled in just a few key strokes. 

 

I don't have to cc: people and bother them, nor do I get junk mail from the boys.  If any boy is going to falsely accuse me of anything he has to show it on his computer and a sent/received email from my email address.

 

Whereas everyone needs YPT, I'm still place a higher priority in CYA training.

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Stosh, I send most of mine to the trash and periodically Hillary my trash bin.  So I can't honestly say they are all saved.  Nor could I prove they were all saved if I stopped cleaning them out.

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Stosh, I send most of mine to the trash and periodically Hillary my trash bin.  So I can't honestly say they are all saved.  Nor could I prove they were all saved if I stopped cleaning them out.

 

I know a lot of people don't like clutter and aren't hoarders, but when it comes to the digital age and YPT/CYA, sometimes one has to make changes in the way they do things.  

 

For those who don't hoard emails, cc:'s work just fine for 99% of the cases out there.  For that 1% I prefer my digital record.  For me it's just easier to drag and drop than look up a bunch of email addresses and if I forget,...?  well that's another story.

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Stosh, I send most of mine to the trash and periodically Hillary my trash bin.  So I can't honestly say they are all saved.  Nor could I prove they were all saved if I stopped cleaning them out.

Don't worry, the NSA has copies.

 

If you use web-based email or a third party provider then everything you send and receive is saved...at least for a period of time.

 

Not sure saving your email is the same as copying someone. That's like telling someone about your 1v1 meeting than being two-deep *during* said meeting. ;)

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Not the same.  I was thinking about proof of what was said if, for the first time in 45 years, I need that proof.

 

Since I was a small cog in Echelon at TPC, I figure there are copies of the telephone voice messages as well, but how do we get at them if we, as opposed to the state, need them?

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