Daughters need co-ed Leadership with Dad camping?

[518Advisor]

Hi all,

I have an upcoming event and my only available female leader is very ill.  I have two youth females camping and both of the their father's are also camping.

 

With the female youths father's camping do I still need female adult leadership for the over night event?

 

thanks

[RememberSchiff]

Welcome to scouter.com

[fred johnson]

Welcome.  Refer to Guide To Safe Scouting section 1 sub section on "Adult Supervision/Coed Activities".  

 

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34416.pdf

 

Short answer, yes.  Long smart-alec answer, but if you remove all youth boys making it only youth girls and thus not co-ed, then it is okay for only male adult leaders.  Hmmmm ... Sort of like now with Boy Scout troops where SM and other adult could be both female while camping.  

 

With the more complex subjective definitions of gender, it seems wrong to require adult leaders of multiple genders.  I say multiple as following the same logic there is not just two genders anymore. 

 

Honestly, I'm pretty smart and I can't find consistency anywhere anymore.  

Edited May 14, 2017 by fred johnson

[Stosh]

Welcome to the forum.

 

If the only 2 females on the trip are with their fathers present?  Call it a Cub Family Camp Activity and you're good to go.  This whole gender issue thingy has basically made all the BSA's YPT rules obsolete. 

[qwazse]

Been there. It stinks. Sorry.

Yes, scramble and get a female adult leader.

Call your council VOA to see if there is someone who can step up at the last minute.

[NJCubScouter]

If the only 2 females on the trip are with their fathers present?  Call it a Cub Family Camp Activity and you're good to go.  This whole gender issue thingy has basically made all the BSA's YPT rules obsolete. 

 

I don't think that is good advice.  This is not Cub Scouts, it is Venturing, and it is not family camping, it is Venturing camping.  If female Venturers are participating, an adult female leader must participate as well.  We could debate whether that SHOULD be the rule when the young womens' fathers are present, but it is the rule.  As for saying that a change in membership procedures "has basically made all the BSA's YPT rules obsolete", I think that is a really irresponsible statement.  The YP rules are in full effect and anyone who decides to disregard them acts at their own peril.

[4CouncilsScouter]

@@518Advisor

 

Welcome to Scouter.com!

 

In short, any Venturing activities that have male and female participants (specifically those under 21) should have co-ed adult (over 21) leadership.

 

Now, that being said, my crew had similar scenario when it started up. When we had less than eight active Venturers, we would frequently have only only four to five attending overnight activities. The ladies in the crew had fathers who were advisors, and the other guys were either brothers or grew up with the brothers through Boy Scouting. For the first two years, our female advisor was very transient due to her job hours, so we made the best of situation. We still attended the activities our Venturers planned, and we may have broken some YPT in process. However, we had a very open and comfortable culture in our crew, and it worked for the benefit our youth! One of those ladies went on earn her Silver Award and work at Philmont. Bare in mind all this was also 5+ years ago.

 

So, I'm by no means advocating ignoring YPT, but you should also look at the dynamics in your crew. Take that how you will.

[Stosh]

@4CouncilsScouter

 

Okay, serious advice - Stick to the letter of the YPT law, it has nothing do do with the dynamics of the group, it's a CYA legal issue.  With the ever increasing rate of divorce, YPT simply covers all the grey areas.  We can debate the validity of such actions, but what it boils down to is the debate between two lawyers in front of a judge. 

 

After all YPT is silent on two female scouters taking a group of Boy Scouts camping.  The biased hypocrisy is obvious.  One male scouter and one female scouter is required only for co-ed activities.

[NJCubScouter]

Okay, serious advice - Stick to the letter of the YPT law...

 

I'll buy that.  I think any further debate on what the YP policy should be, or whether it's hypocritical, or that sort of thing, should be in some other thread in some other part of the forum.  This thread is about what the policy IS in a particular case.

[RichardB]

This is addressed in BSA's barriers to abuse - 

 

Adult Supervision/Coed Activities

Male and female adult leaders must be present for all overnight coed Scouting trips and outings, even those including parent and child. Both male and female adult leaders must be 21 years of age or older, and one must be a registered member of the BSA.

 

Not sure how this is not clear.

 

Link:  http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss01.aspx#a

[RichardB]

@4CouncilsScouter

 

 

After all YPT is silent on two female scouters taking a group of Boy Scouts camping.  The biased hypocrisy is obvious.  One male scouter and one female scouter is required only for co-ed activities.

 

 

Stosh, if a female is along it's co-ed.....both male and female leadership required for overnights.   The barrier is highlighted above.   Yes, historically it started in Venturing, but that barrier is no longer program specific.  

[NJCubScouter]

Stosh, if a female is along it's co-ed.....both male and female leadership required for overnights.   

 

So, wait, if the ONLY female participant in an outing is an adult leader, that makes it co-ed?  Well, I guess that makes sense once I look at it in black and white, but it's not what most people think of as co-ed.  I guess I never thought about it because my troop has never even gotten close to a situation where all the leaders on an outing were women.  Most of the time the leadership is all-male.

 

I think you should put in a definition of co-ed so people realize that either one leader or one participant of the "other" gender makes an outing co-ed.

[4CouncilsScouter]

Bear in mind, this was 5 years ago. This was before the crack-down on Venturing/Sea Scouting YPT. Right now, the current dynamics of treating 18-20 year olds as adults has clouded YPT/Training/Program topics in Venturing.

 

To clarify to my previous post, my crew for the first two years looked like this:

• Five Advisors/Committee Members (Over 21)
• Three male 14-17 year-olds
• Two female 18-19 year-olds
• Two male 18-20 year-olds.

Did we know that 18-20 year olds were considered "youth" by the historical YPT standards? Yes. However, the two young women were also members of my council's camp staff and Venturing district committee. If push came to shove, we were on a single-gender crew outing with two council volunteers observing. It was by no means the ideal situation, but we made the best of it.

[Stosh]

....and did that protect the adults from any improper accusations?  Or weren't there any..... this time?

[qwazse]

....and did that protect the adults from any improper accusations?  Or weren't there any..... this time?

I could think of things being made worse by dragging along certain registered 21 year-olds of the particular sex needed to meet "quotas".

 

But @@RichardB, it has often been me and a female adult on overnights with the boys (or sometimes the girls). The participants, not the leadership define co-ed activities. Two-deep box checked.