BSA Medical form-- Adults authorized to take youth to and from Events?

[Twocubdad]

Hi, Richard;

 

I teach a section of Cub Scout day camp at NCS, was a day camp director for years and still do appraisal for our council, so I've been through a number of different camper security plans.

 

If these authorizations were added to medical forms to accommodate day camps, it seems to me to be a solution in search of a problem. Day camps collect a fair amount of other info not on the medical form - t-shirt size, for example -- with no problem. Camps seem to be managing pretty well with out it.

 

Adding stuff like this and photo releases to the medical forms has the unintended consequence of creating an expectation among parents that everyone is paying attention to this just because it's on the form. So now, while 90% of the parents in our troop have the good sense to know we're not going to check their 17-y.o. out at the end of a troop meeting the way we did when they were at day camp, there are still the few who will hold the troop's feet to the fire when their teen-aged son goes home with his girlfriend after a troop meeting.

 

They're solving a very narrow problem with a solution with huge unintended consequences.

 

And by the way, I would like to add my appreciation to you for your willingness to post here and participate. It's nice to know someone is listening.

[RichardB]

"State" has the intended impact of somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 youth. Think big!

[5yearscouter]

Richard,

I don't want another form.... we kill enough trees in the BSA.

 

the forum could come up with a few tweeks to the medical form so it is a better, more useful form. Just making the FAQ longer won't help.

 

I have typed a bunch of stuff and keep erasing it.

 

I'm afraid you'll take what I suggest and we'll end up with a bigger medical form trying to do more than it already does.

 

[paranoia]

 

parents fill out the med form annually, often right before summer camp, but sometimes at recharter time.

 

The who can take your scout to/from an event belongs on an Event permission slip, rather than on an annually filled out Medical form.

 

Units may use this or a variation of it for their events:

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/19-673.pdf

 

perhaps day camps and resident camps should be using their own permission slip like the above, with the who can transport the scout, and media release added?

 

 

or maybe get rid of the form in the link.

change the FAQ that part B is for Council day and resident camp use.

suggest individual units should use something similar for all of their outings.

 

 

[nolesrule]

"Forms should not need an FAQ and a full page of directions to fill them out. "

 

Tell that to the IRS.

[5yearscouter]

Oh dear

we do no want to use software and/or a paid professional [accountant] to fill out BSA forms, do we?

 

 

[Oak Tree]

I'm going to go with Twocub - I would prefer a different form for permission slips - I don't want it mashed into the medical form. I get parents asking what the point of this line is, and which of the two options is the controlling option.

 

All in all, it would be better not to have these lines on the medical form. It's just confusing, and we basically ignore it.

[shortridge]

Richard,

 

To clarify something I've been wondering, are you speaking for National when you post here?

[RichardB]

Just another scouter trying to keep the movement moving. All registered members of the BSA are all part of the the national organization BTW. Certain topics blend more into my day to day and that of the H&S Support Committee that I advise. This is one of those topics.

 

As a related topic, sometimes we all need to think of a larger impact. Thus if "I" (or other H&S volunteers) can participate here and on a couple other forums then the hope is to keep the misinfo to a minimum.(This message has been edited by Richardb)

[Twocubdad]

As a related topic, sometimes we all need to think of a larger impact. Thus if "I" (or other H&S volunteers) can participate here and on a couple other forums then the hope is to keep the misinfo to a minimum.

 

Amen to that!

 

But still, I wouldn't think 1% to 3% of membership is a particularly big number. Not if it causes problems, albeit minor, for the other 2.5 million or so members.

 

The camp I served as director had two forms, the standard BSA medical form and an application. Over a couple years, we combined the two by adding the couple bits of additional info we needed to collect to the medical form. Basically, we did exactly what this is doing, but only for our 300 campers. Since then, we've been told we cannot make any changes to the medical form so the camp has gone back to two forms.

 

If local/state regulations require units/camps to collect this authorized release information, let the local councils make their own modifications or better yet simply add a line "Required only in X and Y states." to the authorization. The way this is included on the forms now, it is REQUIRED to be completed (or what? If I don't include who to release him to, do you just keep him? Reminds me of the man in the song stuck on the MTA. Too bad my older son just aged out. His first college tutition payment.)

 

Again, I believe asking for this information from all families creates an expectation (or maybe an assumption) that all units and activities are set up to control to whom Scouts are released. Something which is not addressed in the FAQ.

(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

[IM_Kathy]

when I filled out the form I listed the family members that were allowed to pick up my son... included me, my spouse, my daughter, and my husband's family members...

 

in the not allowed were members from my side of the family since we have no contact with any of them and would not be a safe thing.

 

I took it as an "in case of emergency" and grandma shows up to pick up my son due to it they have her on the list. No one at the troop level knows grandma but they could look at ID and see her name on list and okay it.

 

But when I have already made arrangements for him to get a ride home with another scout and their parent - I let the leaders going know that. Since we don't live in the town of our troop some of us from our town will do that on occassion and the leaders would prefer to hear that from a parent than from the scout.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmm...

 

Hadn't thought through all da implications.

 

As RichardB indicates, da health form is designed mostly with camps in mind, eh? Camps in many states get treated as day care centers or somethin' similar under state law and regulations. That is to say, yeh have a paid staff that doesn't know the boys but is professionally trained. Da state laws really don't anticipate the typical BSA camp case, where the boys come with volunteer leaders and parents who do know the boys, know their circumstances, and are often granted explicit permission or authority by the parents beyond da usual "camp staff" stuff.

 

Problem is often da councils and camp staff are so focused on da state law and regulation components as though they were a YMCA camp that they don't understand da funky overlap. And to be fair, sometimes da state regulators don't get it, either. Bureaucrats are bureaucrats, after all. Yeh see this often with inane medication policies, eh? But also in da other medical stuff. It's all written like da camp is takin' care of the kid, where in reality in most cases the adult who knows the boy and is known to the parents is likely to be takin' a primary role (and might even be the parent).

 

Things get even more challengin' when yeh take da med form designed for camp and try to apply it to regular troop operations. For one thing, yeh have to be very careful about waivers and permissions between states. Different states have different expectations for such things. Da second thing is that some of the stuff designed for camp can get yeh in trouble, like this release stuff. Generally speakin' within a troop most folks don't run a gate check after a meeting or outing and make sure that da person picking up a lad is on da approved list. Heck, some of da carpool arrangements I've seen would have parents listing a dozen or more people, and then all of a sudden the college-aged older brother of one of the boys in the carpool does the pickup and he's not on the list.

 

Long and short of it is most folks would think it reasonable for leaders not to do that kind of high-scrutiny check before sending the boys home. However, if those forms were collected that asked for da information, then there's a good shot that most folks would consider it negligent if yeh didn't follow da instructions you solicited on your own form. So da form potentially increases da liability of unit scouters if they don't adhere to it.

 

IMNSHO, given that da forms were designed for camps and we seem to be addin' stuff just to make Texas or other states happy, units would be better off not usin' the BSA form for regular unit operations, at least in terms of da permissions. Have your own permission form / liability waiver that's tailored to your unit operations and your state, and make it clear that da BSA health form stuff applies only to BSA camp, if then.

 

Beavah

 

[5yearscouter]

meeting last night.

parents filling out names of drivers on their abc medical forms

and then filling out permission sips for the summer camp which is basically part B of the med form all over again, but specifically for that summer camp with place for date at the top.

 

it will be interesting since both forms don't match on names of people who can take scouts to/from. does one form supercede the other one if they are dated the same day?

 

1 form parents were treating as for the troop and the other form parents were treating as for the summer camp. and mostly left the names blank, because they are going out of state for summer camp, and parents assume that they will be called first and they don't know anyone in california they want to pick up their scout.