YPT Changes in TCC Proposal

[CynicalScouter]

5 minutes ago, PeterHopkins said:

Is it possible for the BSA (or any youth-serving organization) to have youth protection rules so robust that they could successfully defend an action in a state court?

Yes.

BSA is NOT being sued or claimed filed because sexual abuse happened in scouting.

They are being sued because DUE TO BSA's NEGLIGENCE scouts were abused.

If BSA can show in a state court case they took all due diligence all reasonable precautions to prevent the abuse (and it happened anyway) that could be a sufficient defense to a negligence claim.

Whether they reached that point in any given case is to be determined by a judge and jury.

[RememberSchiff]

The truth is out there.

[David CO]

1 minute ago, RememberSchiff said:

The truth is out there.

Yes, but so are the lies.  It can be difficult sometimes to distinguish between the two.

 

[johnsch322]

2 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

The truth is out there.

The truth is in front of everyone’s eyes. Some just choose to ignore it. 

Just now, David CO said:

Yes, but so are the lies.  It can be difficult sometimes to distinguish between the two.

 

In your view what are the lies?

[PeterHopkins]

@CynicalScouter - I am a Cubmaster of a pack chartered to a Catholic church in a diocese that has already gone through its bankruptcy. I'm coming up on three years there. I spent a few years with a troop chartered by a Catholic church in a different diocese 20 years ago. I've been other places in between.

I don't feel like the oversight of the diocese is particularly robust. They ask us to get separate background checks at the pack's cost done by a contractor they chose. There is a formula that determines the number of background-checked adults we need present for activities based on the number of youth in attendance. This means we have registered Scouters who have not gone through the extra vetting. It was fairly expensive for a small pack like ours. The investigator charged more for my background check, since I lived in Indonesia between 2011 and 2015. He said he needed to subcontract the work to someone overseas, Since we only needed three background check (out of 10 registered Scouters), we did it for me (as Cubmaster) and two den leaders.

There is a video all volunteers are supposed to watch about keeping children safe. I watched it. I doubt others have. The mechanism to provide the completion certificate doesn't work. So, I cannot prove I watched it. Therefore, there is no way to audit any records we might have about compliance with the requirement. It's been more than two years that there has been no ability to generate a completion certificate. I watched it a second time about a year ago, and it still didn't work.

From the perspective of evaluating how well their system is working, the only thing my diocese is doing that wasn't done 20 years ago is making requirements, the completion of which cannot be verified. Due to previous pack leaders leaving, we went at least a year and a half without enough background-checked volunteers. No one noticed. Our compliance is essentially voluntary.

At least in my diocese, there might be public reporting, but there has been no substantial improvement in how the safety of children is truly being managed.

[CynicalScouter]

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

• Who is the BSA board?
• Who is in charge of YP for BSA? Either paid professional, volunteer committee members, or both. I'll take any.
• How many occurrences/how prevalent is child sexual abuse in scouting today?

Hiding. Hiding. Hiding.

Hey @fred8033: Rather than just downvoting me, can you answer any of these three basic questions about BSA and YP?

Or is the down vote your only answer?

[David CO]

26 minutes ago, johnsch322 said:

In your view what are the lies?

There is one particular lie that I have had to deal with in every Health class I have ever taught over my 40 year career.  The lie is that a persons clothing choices are responsible for their abuse.  The lie is that victims are "asking for it" by the way they choose to dress.  I have heard this lie over and over again from both students and parents.  It drives me nuts.

I always tell my students that their clothing choices have absolutely nothing to do with any sexual abuse they might experience.  Abuse victims are not responsible for the actions of their abuser on account of their clothing choices.  The abuser is responsible.

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by David CO

[fred8033]

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

Show me a youth serving organization with tens of thousands of victims. Catholic Church? Yep, and they put it in an annual report. USA Gymnastics? They have agreed to do so as part of their bankruptcy. BSA? No way, fighting it tooth and claw.

Public schools  ... 15,000 in one year.  2018.  

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/10/15/sexual-assault-k-12-schools/

Interesting ... we have the data because there is a governmental organization collecting the data.  Go figure. 

• https://ocrdata.ed.gov/

Sports sexual abuse

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6204631/

I'm trying to find the link to the numbers and the details.  NPR had a great article earlier this year about coaches and sexual abuse.  ... Including coaches IN THE LAST DECADE minimizing penetration incidents as boys will be boys and not wanting to ruin a kid's future AND NOT REPORTING.

[PeterHopkins]

14 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

If BSA can show in a state court case they took all due diligence all reasonable precautions to prevent the abuse (and it happened anyway) that could be a sufficient defense to a negligence claim.

So, 20 years ago, those of us who were volunteers were watching 90-minute videos every two years as our Youth Protection Training. The experts who appeared in those videos gave the BSA lavish praise as a leader in this area. If such praise was truly warranted, one would think the BSA would be immune from claims that its neglect led to abuse, but that isn't the case.

A Scouter in my district in the 1990s was convicted for abusing his Scouts. He was a Scoutmaster and would routinely invite the senior patrol leader to his home for planning discussion, and that gave him the opportunity to commit crimes. He clearly violated the one-on-one contact rule that already existed at that time. I have no idea whether there was a civil proceeding involving the council or the BSA. There were no background checks at time time, but no red flags would have shown up anyway. All that was needed were three references on the adult application, and I don't believe anyone actually follows up on those. The perpetrator had been a Scout in the troop in the 1970s and 1980s.

A background check would not have been unreasonable in the 1990s, and following up on the references on the application doesn't seem like an undue burden. So, I suppose that even though doing those things would have come up with no reasons to deny the perpetrator the opportunity to volunteer, the fact that it wasn't done is the key element.

When I was a senior patrol leader in the early/mid 1980s, I routinely went to my Scoutmaster's home for planning discussions as well as planning on my Eagle project and merit badge work. He was less than 10 years older than me. His father was usually there, but sometimes not. I also went to the homes of several merit badge counselors who lived alone. I was never victimized. However, had I been, I can clearly see that the BSA did virtually nothing to prevent it. Once we get to 1989, with the introduction of the Youth Protection regime, we see something being done, but it appears that follow-up and oversight are inadequate.

Since I value your insight on this, is the BSA doing enough today to avoid rising to the level of being negligent? When I turned in my most recent volunteer application in 2018, I doubt anyone followed up with the references listed. I wonder whether requiring the references creates more exposure for the BSA than deleting the requirement from the application would. If you set procedures and don't follow them, that is sometimes worse than not having the at all. I know the chartered organization is supposed to follow up on that, but I doubt most CORs know that. They probably think the council will d it, when the application arrives in the registrar's hands.

So, aside from requiring references be checked, do you think there's anything more the BSA needs to do?

[CynicalScouter]

9 minutes ago, PeterHopkins said:

Since I value your insight on this, is the BSA doing enough today to avoid rising to the level of being negligent?

Here is going to be the problem: what is BSA doing to ensure compliance?

BSA can have all the YP videos in the world, all the training in the world, but if leaders are not a) being reported and b) shoved out the door, who cares?

That's why data is critical: how many incidents of YP violations? What happened to the offenders? How severe was the YP violation? Etc.

One reason I suspect BSA is NOT willing to release this information is that it will show a) abuse is NOT in fact being reported to the police (mandatory reporting language in BSA material aside) b) abuse is not being reported AT ALL.

Like I said: if you find a council that reports 0 YP violations (major OR minor) in a given year, either clone that Scout Executive (because he/she reached perfection) or launch an audit because the data is garbage.

Edited October 4, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[HelpfulTracks]

3 hours ago, PeterHopkins said:

I don't want to speak on behalf of @CynicalScouter, but I've read many of his posts on multiple threads in this forum. I think the exchange you and he have had in this thread has resulted in a communication breakdown. You're not getting the message I think he's trying to send.

I appreciate your effort to clarify the communication breakdown between CynicalScouter and myself, but my issue is less about the message you think he's trying to send and the message he is sending.

CynicalScouter has posted, in this thread an others, inflammatory information, misinformation and misleading information as well as accused me an others of “turning a blind eye” and “looking the other way” in regards to child abuse. In fact the sub-thread you are replying in fred8033 made a comment that  “We have mandatory reporting.  IT's THE LAW !!!!!”, and CyncialScout replied “How often does BSA report the number of YP violations? Answer: 0”. To the casual reader who may be coming to this forum for information that says BSA is breaking the law by not reporting abuses as the law requires. If he is half as smart as he appears to be he knows that, and could have cleaned it up, but he didn’t.

As I stated, I generally give people the benefit of doubt that they do not have ill intentions, but when it is a frequent and visceral as his post, it becomes less and less likely it is careless and more likely intentional.

For whatever good intentions he may have, he seems intent on burying them beneath a layer of attacks on anyone who disagrees, questions or even offers a level of assistance that do not rise to a level of which he approves.  And in the long run I think that does more harm than it does good for our youth.

There are hundreds of thousands of good scouters out here making every effort, spending a lot of time, energy, effort and money to deliver a good program that is safe for children, that roots out any abuses. IF he wants to drop his scorched earth tactics and join us in making Scouting better and safer for all youth, I’ll welcome him. But if insist on continuing to needlessly attack, and spew falsehoods, I’ll continue to call him out.

As for the rest of your post, I agree wholeheartedly. 

Edited October 4, 2021 by HelpfulTracks
typo

[CynicalScouter]

4 minutes ago, HelpfulTracks said:

CyncialScout replied “How often does BSA report the number of YP violations? Answer: 0”.

Yep. And that is a 100% factual statement:  BSA does NOT report the number of YP violations.

Edited October 4, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[HelpfulTracks]

1 minute ago, CynicalScouter said:

Yep. And that is a 100% factual statement:  BSA does NOT report the number of YP violations.

I rest my case

[CynicalScouter]

8 minutes ago, HelpfulTracks said:

I rest my case

I am really not sure what case that is. That BSA refuses to report the number of YP violations? That the TCC is forcing it, under COURT ORDER, to do so?

I fully support that case. Yep. BSA needs to stop hiding, hiding, hiding.

So I have a challenge for @HelpfulTracks. Here, now, today, this minute: can you answer any of these three using ONLY resources available to the general public? Not any insider knowledge you may have.

• Who is the BSA board?
• Who is in charge of YP for BSA? Either paid professional, volunteer committee members, or both. I'll take any.
• How many occurrences/how prevalent is child sexual abuse in scouting today?

No? Ok then.

Edited October 4, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[HelpfulTracks]

4 hours ago, johnsch322 said:

No the legal case is not about punishing BSA...it is about the BSA looking to survive via bankruptcy by giving the least amount they can legally get away with to survivors.

To be fair:

The plaintiffs attorneys goal is to secure as much damages as possible for their clients (others would say as much as possible within a timeframe).

BSA is trying to survive so it can continue to conduct programing for youth. 

So yes, both sides are trying to push the $$ amount in a direction that benefits them.