aph5

As a scout parent(not an official volunteer) and forum lurker, I wanted to comment on this topic. I’m sorry if this comes off as a rant, but this is a major irritation I have with the boy scouts. I want to emphasize that I would love to volunteer for my son’s scout troop or volunteered when he was in cub scouts. I am very involved with a number of activities which my children participate in and truly love the work I do in those programs. However, I have never volunteered with the boy scouts for one main reason: I absolutely refuse to give up my social security and driver’s license numbers for a volunteer position. There are three main reasons for this stance. The first one is obviously the privacy issues and the possibility of identity theft from giving this very confidential information out. Second, I don’t believe background checks do very much; it’s simply a PR stunt that accomplishes very little. For example, Jerry Sandusky could have passed a background check well past his 60th birthday. The two-deep leadership rule(which I have always observed is followed and is my personal rule I follow when I volunteer) does far more to protect the boys involved with the BSA than any background check can every hope to accomplish. Finally, there are ways to do criminal background checks that do not require a social security number. As a scout parent, the two-deep rule is infinitely more reassuring to me than any criminal background check that a scout leader has passed.