Ethical Alternatives to Big Scouts
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Anonymous
There are Packs/Troops that are sponsored by Better Business Bureaus and PTAs and similar organizations. We are chartered by a local church but meet at the elementary school and complete our service projects for the elementary school. Most people think are sponsored by the PTA. I don't think anyone in our Pack attends the sponsoring Church. |
Anonymous
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I am Scoutmaster of a Troop in the District and was one of those who was in the room when the vote was taken to re-establish the BSA as a welcoming organization. It has now been 5 years since that vote and we are a much better organization for it. We lost many broad-minded members when the ill advised “don’t ask don’t tell” policy (no openly professed gays, lesbians, Trans, etc.) was adopted by previous national leaders in the early 90s. We then lost many conservatives when we ended the policy. It was a regrettable episode for the BSA – but I hope people reading this consider the organization as it is today and not 5 years ago. I have personally only recently begun to get over bad feelings for the people who caused adoption of those policies. They had no right to disadvantage so many people and in the process make the BSA into a cultural punching bag.
Religion in any Troop I have ever been exposed to (including my own church-sponsored organization) is a matter between the Scout and the family. The BSA policy is essentially that a child should believe in “something”, but the BSA is not a religious institution and embraces no religious dogma. “Something” can mean “anything”, including a child who does not know what or whether to believe. If a parent is a committed atheism advocate, my response will probably not satisfy them – but 40 families in our group believe the policy is acceptable. Most other “scout-like” organizations are part of church religious education departments and profession of specific beliefs. For instance, “Trail Life” requires its leaders to confirm in writing belief in a triune Christian God and other related beliefs and behavioral standards. The BSA is as low-key on religion as you are going to find anywhere. The BSA is now going through a reorganization bankruptcy because like most elements of society, it did not do a sufficient job of preventing child abuse in the early 80s and before. Significant payments will be made to thousands of claimants in the process. However, since the 80s the BSA has enforced very strict youth protection background checks and activity policies that have become the “gold standard” for youth protection. This bankruptcy, combined with COVID, is going to shrink the size of the BSA for a few years. However, the organization will come back as strong as ever. |
Anonymous
Weird you think 4H is LESS conservative. You clearly don’t know my pack! The national organization has been sued a lot for sheltering pedophiles, like most major organizations dealing with children (every church denomination, many boarding schools, regular school systems). It is disgusting but, again, telling the kid he can’t go camping with his friends seems a strange way to try to punish BSA headquarters. And now the safety rules for Scouts are the strongest I have seen - they are safer there than many places that haven’t had to reckon with the issue. |
Anonymous
The Youth Protection Training is a requirement ever other year for all Den leaders, CubMasters, Committee Members, Troop Leaders, and Merit Badge Counselors. All parents are expected to read a Youth Protection Training at the beginning of each year and review safety measures with their kids. it is actually a requirement for their child to earn their rank in Cub Scouts. And there is Cyber Training that each child is required to complete. The Youth Protection Training program is available to all parents as well. It is pretty well done. The BSA did the same thing that the Catholic Church and a lot of other organizations did in the past. |
Anonymous
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Every dimension of child abuse is so thoroughly terrible that society’s previous reaction to it through the years was deformed beyond reason. I’ve read enough to gather that reactions to discovery of an incident ranged from: “Let’s keep it secret so as to not harm the reputation of the child” to “let’s kill the perpetrator” and everything in between. In earlier decades, even law enforcement personnel sometimes believed taking action might somehow be harmful to a child. Thankfully, all of this changed in the early 80s. In a youth services organization setting, child abuse is prevented and detected if it is taken seriously by the organization.
Since the early 80s the BSA policy has been very clear – take immediate action to halt any abuse observed to be in-progress and immediately report actual or suspected incidents directly to law enforcement. Scoutmasters and other Scouting volunteers are “mandatory reporters”, so do not attempt any jokes or humor about this subject with them. All BSA volunteers are trained in this reporting procedure and in elaborate anti-abuse prevention and detection procedures. These very detailed regulations are far beyond the scope of this brief posting, but are comprehensive. In our Scouts BSA Troop, the leaders probably spend at least 20% of our planning time just mapping out how to assure compliance with these youth protection requirements. Every minute is worth it to assure safety for our youth participants. |
Anonymous
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OP, I know nothing about it, but there's something called STEM Scouts that might be of interest:
https://stemscouts.org/ |
Anonymous
| STEM Scouts is a co-ed program offered by the BSA for Cub Scout aged girls and boys. It focuses on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. It is usually offered in connection with a school. |