Youth Protection;

[SnarlyYow]

Hey y'all, it's been about three years since I've been on this forum. I was the Committee Chair of our troop in Oregon and I had raised some concerns then. We had both a Scout Troop and a Venture Crew with about a dozen kids. Later, we had a Cubs program as well. I was committee chair of our Troop/Crew.

At the time there were several large problems:

-All the leaders of the troop were from the same family (Son1/Son2/Mother/Father)
-The Leaders had promoted Son2, who was Transgender, to be the female leader of the Crew
-The Scout Master had left our CO and taken all the gear without informing the CO

Here's a link to two of those issues as I spoke about them on this forum some three years ago.

 

Once the SM had taken all the gear and left the premises of the CO I wound up leaving the troop. I decided, shortly after I posted here, that since out SM just did whatever he wanted there was no reason to have a committee. I didn't like that this man chose to lie to everyone around him. He was uncontrollable. At first I thought all of this might be able to be brought in line with more oversight, boy was I wrong. I had tried, unsuccessfully, to break up the level of power he and his family held over the troop. What more could be done? It was probably June or July 2016 when I stopped acting as the committee chair.

And it was less than a year later when he was arrested for sexual abuse of minors, some of whom were Scouts.

Though Doug Young Senior has been sentenced to a sweet 23 years in prison, there's still a case against Scouts from several youth members. I don't have any knowledge of those cases. But I did want to share some things I learned with you so you can look for them.

-Constant Subterfuge. This was hard to see when I was part of the troop but Doug was a fantastic liar. There was always a reason he was late. Not 15 minutes late, an hour late. There was always a reason we did a thing a certain way even if that way made zero amount of sense.
-A lack of interest in traditional Scout things. The campouts and weekly Scout Meetings were much more important than badges and service projects which were barely focused on at all.
-Ducking Youth Protection for seemingly innocuous reasons ("I did take John home alone but he's a personal family friend.")
-Blaming others like he did when he took things from our CO and remade the troop.

-An eagerness to control the situation

-He took in troubled kids

-Most importantly, He treated children like friends, like he was their peer (They'd come over and play board games or watch movies WITH HIM.) 

Some of these things strike me as innocuous, like anyone could do them. But in hindsight it's clear that they paint a bigger picture. The Subterfuge was an attempt to hide the truth so he could further control all narratives. The division of responsibilities within Scouts, and particularly our troop, allowed him to control every narrative. The Committee largely didn't interact with the CO (Because Doug kept the CO in the dark and found one who wasn't super involved.) The Committee also didn't exist for YEARS until I learned that we were supposed to have one and I got it up and running. In fact, Doug was content to be SM without any backing bureaucracy at all. Which...that's alarming.

It also came to light that he had run a blog where he discussed "spooning" teenagers. I would definetly be googling all your volunteers periodically. He had also been accused, but never charged, of sexual abuse at least twice previously. I wish to God a police officer would have reached out to me and said something, even off the record. This is a small town, I would have been so easy to find and just have someone say "Hey, that guy in your troop. Make sure you watch him like a hawk."

It was also interesting to see the after effects. Once arrested in March of 2017, the very first thing that happened was his defense attorney came, along with his parents, to the next troop meeting to defend him. The town, which is small, was pretty divided. A lot of people testified to his wholesomeness or the fact that he went out of his way to help their brother/son. Of course, the moment he was arrested I was like "Geeze, that makes sense" or, actually, "knew it." It just wasn't shocking to me that someone like Doug would have this come his way. Again, this is a troop I tried to pull my son from until he got all bitter and angry at me for doing so. I wish I had stuck to me guns. And I wish the community could see what was, to me, after dealing with the man, so readily apparent.

I want to reiterate how important youth protection is. I want to say "if something feels wrong, it might be wrong. Keep your eyes open and, for the love of all that's holy, DO NOT PERMIT IT." This was exactly my take then, it's why I eventually left because I realized how powerless I was. If Doug wanted to do something he'd use the very smart tactic of "agreeing to your way then just ignoring that he'd ever done so." If you see something that you question, watch everything else. Get as many people involved as you can.

Good luck out there.
 

Edited July 20, 2019 by SnarlyYow

[Buggie]

Ever vigilant. And never be afraid to report YPT violations, even if they have an excuse. We all take YPT and we know the rules we must abide by. There's never an excuse not to do so. 

I have experienced an adult who was a predator, he was trying to get my son to be with him alone on occasions and trying to be a family friend. I never did let him. He could have just been a guy trying to be friendly, but he raised the hackles on my wife's and my neck. He was the husband of one of our ministers. he was an absolute bore. Should be completely innocent, but again, hackles raised when he wanted to be alone with my kid. 

He was eventually arrested by the FBI for trying to hook up with minors in a chat room. They arrested him at a parking lot, where he had arranged to meet a minor from that chat room. 

[fred8033]

I have luckily never encountered such a predator ... at least to my knowledge.  But I have repeatedly seen adults who are trusting of other because of character or reputation and willing to ignore the taught rules.  We need to help others follow the rules and to remind them of the rules.  We need to not be embarrassed to call people out on the rules.  

[qwazse]

@SnarlyYow, thanks for sharing.

In multiple volunteer capacities I have met predators and folks who were wrongly accused of predation. I'd be a fool if I thought that I can now tell the difference.

[NJCubScouter]

On 7/21/2019 at 6:26 AM, qwazse said:

I'd be a fool if I thought that I can now tell the difference.

Which is really one of the main points on which BSA YP training/guidelines are based.  You just can't know for sure.

One time when I was a school board member (this would have been about 15 years ago), I was having a discussion with one of my fellow board members about the idea of adopting what amounted to a "no one-on-one" rule for teachers and students.  She said something like "If we can't trust a teacher to be alone with a student, society is in big trouble."  Now this was a highly educated and intelligent person.  I look at her in disbelief, before saying something like, "well, society is in big trouble then."  Obviously she had not had any version of YP-like training.  But I had.

[David CO]

50 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

You just can't know for sure.

No, you can't know for sure.

The world is an imperfect place. It is not heaven, and we are not angels.