Chapter 11 announced - Part 2 (after the big slow)

[Eagle1993]

13 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

That organization would have a better chance of being safe with greater inherent accountability and protections established from the jump.

Its disappointing that they are not more specific.  What is missing in today's YPT and B2A.  I have various sport and Girl Scout leaders who have taken BSA's YPT and are impressed.  I'm sure there are improvements, I just haven't heard anything significant that says the whole organization should be destroyed and today's youth should not have access to any High Adventure camp or scout camp.  Perhaps some of these individuals should talk with the hundreds of thousands of scouts that will be robbed of this opportunity.  

So, is she promoting Trail Life?  Is that what she and Kosnoff want?  Destroy BSA and promote Trail Life?  Or Ben Carson is talking about starting Little Patriots.  If I were them, I would take her statement as an endorsement.

[T2Eagle]

I agree with her about the trade off between compensating victims vs HA bases.  

A small percentage of our scouts go to a HA base, but virtually everyone of our scouts, Cub and Scouts BSA spends some time at our local camps.

There are plenty of ways to do HA for the number of scouts who do it, reproducing summer camps and Cub day camp is much harder.

[Sentinel947]

2 minutes ago, T2Eagle said:

I agree with her about the trade off between compensating victims vs HA bases.  

A small percentage of our scouts go to a HA base, but virtually everyone of our scouts, Cub and Scouts BSA spends some time at our local camps.

There are plenty of ways to do HA for the number of scouts who do it, reproducing summer camps and Cub day camp is much harder.

Agreed. It's unfortunate to lose the HA bases, but if that's a price to keep council camps, then it should be paid. Plenty of wonderful state and national parks and forests to do HA trips in. 

[DavidLeeLambert]

4 hours ago, T2Eagle said:

I'm not sure they would have any computerized record of his membership.  So when you sent a letter where would they record it?  Start a new record for him based on the letter?  Try to resurrect a paper file that's likely moldering in a warehouse somewhere?

Historically, the BSA added people to the IVF, at least some times, based on just a report that they were talking about starting a Scout unit, not only if they had already been registered.

And it also added people to the IVF for conduct that had happened several years before. For example, I remember reading one file about a man who was the wintertime supervisor of the horse-tending program at D bar A Scout Ranch (Michigan) in the early '70s. In the early '80s, the local council got a letter from a now-man who accused him of drinking, drunk driving, giving alcohol to underage boys, and certain semi-clothed "games"; he was in the IVF on that basis.

(I'm having trouble finding that particular file today. LA Times no longer shows a dot on its map anywhere near that camp; I wonder if the alleged IV is still alive, and now lives in California, and invoked his rights under the CCPA; or maybe the record is still out there, but he was registered with a unit a long way from that camp.)

6 hours ago, ThenNow said:

For clarification, they had no record of notifying law enforcement and neither National nor the LC gave me any indication they had received my letter.

Just to clarify further, did you send two copies of the letter, one to National and one to the LC, or a letter to one with a request that they forward it to the other? Did you provide a phone-number, so they could call you back to verify it? Did you send it Certified Mail?

60 years ago a candidate for Scoutmaster could ask the Council executive "Am I on the Confidential File?" One abuser did, and was told "no", and went on to commit more abuse, and that fact is duly noted in his file.

According to the terms of the most recent stipulation extending the stay against local councils, you should be able to request your former unit's roster, with names of other youth redacted, from either the TCC or the Coalition.

[yknot]

1 hour ago, vol_scouter said:

Please inform the CDC that what they are now recommending to prevent abuse in youth organizations is an incompetent effort.  It would seem that the BSA was decades ahead of the times.  It seems to me that the problem is with the manner in which the legal system handles such things.

 

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.  

[Eagle1993]

21 minutes ago, Sentinel947 said:

Agreed. It's unfortunate to lose the HA bases, but if that's a price to keep council camps, then it should be paid. Plenty of wonderful state and national parks and forests to do HA trips in. 

I honestly don’t think that will be the trade off anymore.  I used to think giving up an HA base may save a local council camp... but I doubt that is true.  If BSA can prove it’s a restricted asset they should keep it.  If it isn’t restricted then it should go to the trust.  

[5thGenTexan]

1 hour ago, ThenNow said:

Eliana’s presentation and Q&A went directly to issues of the bankruptcy. Some of my takeaways, based on her thoughts and opinions:

1) BSA historically and systemically failed to protect children, which leads her to conclude she would not trust her kids to the BSA and understands why others don’t;

2) if the BSA is preserved in some form following the bankruptcy, it should not be under the same leaders that “allowed this to happen;”

 3) she prefers criminal prosecutions in matters of sexual abuse so “people go to jail”;

4) She doesn’t believe any amount can truly compensate for “altering the trajectory” of someone’s life, but it’s more important to see survivors compensated than allow the BSA to retain HA and other major properties/assets;

5) she was not extremely well versed in the numbers of the case, admitting that her coverage was more on survivor stories and the movement to see people come forward with their abuse;

6) she has no knowledge of international cases of sexual abuse in the BSA, but wouldn’t be at all surprised if the same scenario was found to exist elsewhere; and 

7) it’s her opinion that another group could do what the BSA set out to do (and be) as well as the BSA or a reboot of it. That organization would have a better chance of being safe with greater inherent accountability and protections established from the jump. She didn’t elaborate.

I pretty much trust our leaders in my town, Pack and Troop.  I know everyone pretty well.  That being said, once my kid leaves town to another camp someplace be it in Council or maybe somewhere else.  No, I can't say even with YPT that I trust those adults.  My kid won't be going anywhere that I am not there. 

 

Now... I was never sexually abused as a Scout. The few trips I did go on with the Troop were less than safe though.  Since I was one of the new kids in the Troop, the adults in their infinite wisdom apparently thought it was ok I didn't have a seat in the van.  On at least two trips I got to sit on the floor of the van, once of those was on the floor in that little space between the most rear row of seats and the back doors.  Looking back it was stupid and irresponsible on their part.

 

So no, you can count me as a trained leader that won't be sending my 11 or 12 year old off with the Troop without me.  I don't care how much he misses out on growing and being independent with me just being there.

[vol_scouter]

35 minutes ago, yknot said:

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.  

Excuse me if I were not clear.  The CDC is now saying that youth serving organizations should keep a list of people who are thought or known to be child abusers.  The BSA di it decades ago.  The BSA spent considerable time and money to engage the national leaders (not Scouters, nationally recognized leaders in child abuse) to develop the current Youth Protection Training (YPT).  This has made the BSA once again the leader in protecting youth.

In the previous thread, the Department of Education sponsored a review of the literature published in 2017 entitled: A Case Study of K–12 School Employee Sexual Misconduct: Lessons Learned from Title IX Policy Implementation.  The first sentence of the report states:  “An estimated 10% of K–12 students will experience sexual misconduct by a school employee by the time they graduate from high school.” 

According to Fast Facts: Back to school statistics (372) (ed.gov) [https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372], there will be 50.7 M K-12 students in public schools in 2020-2021 school year or 56.4 M total which means over 5 million abused (clearly, an estimate as every year children are graduating high school and others are reaching kindergarten but it should be a good approximation). 

The BSA reports that there have been 130 million participants in Scouting since its founding and there are 83,000 persons who claim to have been abused.  While my personal belief is that this number has a significant number of claims that would not stand rigorous scrutiny, let us accept the number and roundup to 100,000 to account for old cases never reported.  Then the incidence of abuse in Scouting since 1910 is 83,000/130,000,000 = 0.000638 = 0.0638%.

Comparing 0.0638% of Scouts to 10% of schoolchildren would argue a much less risky environment in Scouting.  

Scouting has been and is the leader in youth protection.  Many other organizations have done far less well.  That does not excuse any abuse but the BSA is a leader.  The plaintiffs attorneys wish to paint the BSA in a poor light even though it is not correct.  It is part of the legal crisis that the nation faces.

 

[David CO]

1 hour ago, vol_scouter said:

The BSA reports that there have been 130 million participants in Scouting since its founding and there are 83,000 persons who claim to have been abused.  While my personal belief is that this number has a significant number of claims that would not stand rigorous scrutiny, let us accept the number and roundup to 100,000 to account for old cases never reported.  Then the incidence of abuse in Scouting since 1910 is 83,000/130,000,000 = 0.000638 = 0.0638%.

Comparing 0.0638% of Scouts to 10% of schoolchildren would argue a much less risky environment in Scouting.  

You have got to be kidding.  There are so many things wrong with this.  Let me start with the most obvious.  Most of the scouts from 1910 are dead.  They can't report any abuse.  They just can't.  

 

[MYCVAStory]

1 hour ago, vol_scouter said:

Scouting has been and is the leader in youth protection.  Many other organizations have done far less well.  That does not excuse any abuse but the BSA is a leader.  The plaintiffs attorneys wish to paint the BSA in a poor light even though it is not correct.  It is part of the legal crisis that the nation faces.

I encourage you to become informed.  Over 11,000 people have submitted claims for the years following  1990 when many of the Youth Protection Training protocols used today were enacted.  If that alone isn't a "poor light" that has nothing to do with plaintiff attorneys then I don't know what is.  Consider as well that it is wisely accepted that most victims do not come forward until after they are 40, and that the 11,000 claims are INDIVIDUAL claims that include MULTIPLE acts.   Clearly, the days when the BSA could be considered a "leader" in youth protection have ended.

[David CO]

1 hour ago, vol_scouter said:

Scouting has been and is the leader in youth protection.  Many other organizations have done far less well.  That does not excuse any abuse but the BSA is a leader.  

If that wasn't so sad, I'd laugh.

[Eagle1993]

6 hours ago, MYCVAStory said:

Youth Protection Training protocols used today were enacted

This is incorrect.  The training used today is new (~3 years old).  Yes, that was when 2 deep leadership and no one on one contact started but BSA has been making various updates since.  There was also changes to the background check process recently.  This has been an evolving area for BSA and most youth organizations. Claiming there was a hard line in 1990 and no changes since is false.  

[ThenNow]

9 hours ago, DavidLeeLambert said:

did you send two copies of the letter, one to National and one to the LC, or a letter to one with a request that they forward it to the other? Did you provide a phone-number, so they could call you back to verify it? Did you send it Certified Mail?

Yes to the former. Yes. No. It didn't occur to me I should need to do that. In my mental and psychological state at that time, it was not high on my priority list.

As to verify via phone number, I also gave all my history in Scouting, CO, home town, they had my name and his name, my email address, etc. etc. Not sure what you're getting at that I failed to do. Thanks, in advance, for clarifying. (I paused, reread and am being kind...)

Edited April 7, 2021 by ThenNow

[ThenNow]

6 hours ago, MYCVAStory said:

the 11,000 claims are INDIVIDUAL claims that include MULTIPLE acts.

In an attempt to humanize this and put a point on it, the abuse I suffered comprises one claim among the 84,000 claimants. On the infamous chart, I am represented by one tick mark in the 22,898 CAT 1 claims row. However, in reality I have at least 50 additional, distinct claims spread across all Categories, top to bottom, that don't appear on that chart and are not represented within the 84,000. Ponder that for a few minutes. One claimant. Conservatively, 50 incidents of abuse, as defined.

[MYCVAStory]

1 hour ago, Eagle1993 said:

This is incorrect.  The training used today is new (~3 years old).  Yes, that was when 2 deep leadership and no one on one contact started but BSA has been making various updates since.  There was also changes to the background check process recently.  This has been an evolving area for BSA and most youth organizations. Claiming there was a hard line in 1990 and no changes since is false.  

Please don't re-word a post.  At no point did the statement include "no changes since."   The year 1990 was used to correspond with the "new version" of YPT.  See "https://www.scoutingnewsroom.org/youth-protection/100-years-of-enhancing-efforts-to-protect-youth