Youth Protection Training
Old Colony Council's Policy
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has a comprehensive program to ensure the safety of all the youth in Scouting. As part of this program, all leaders in Old Colony Council must take Youth Protection Training (YPT) every year. When you recharter your pack, troop, or crew at the end of 2016, every adult on your charter must have taken YPT sometime in 2016.
If you become aware of a youth protection violation or a case of suspected abuse, please follow Old Colony Council's reporting procedures.
Read on to learn more about...
Why Do We Have This Training Policy?
The BSA’s national policy still states that YPT expires and must be renewed every two years. Old Colony Council's policy is more stringent than the national policy. We're allowed to have a local policy that's stronger than the national requirement, and in this case, we have several very good reasons for doing so:
- YPT has been mandatory for all leaders nationwide since 2010. The problem is, too many leaders either hadn’t taken the training, didn’t renew it when it expired, or took it but the official records still didn’t say they did. As a result, our council’s records showed that too many people weren’t trained. Prior to announcing the new policy, our council's low compliance rate on paper put us at serious risk.
- The enhanced policy will increase safety for our scouts and leaders by preventing people from "slipping through the cracks" without taking YPT.
- The policy will keep us all 100% compliant for the entire year ahead when we recharter our packs, troops, and crews. The policy will prevent people from falling out of compliance due to YPT expiring during the middle of the year. For example, if you took the training in 2015, it won’t officially expire until 2017, which means it will be valid for the entire year of 2016. Then we'll repeat the same process for 2017.
This policy was announced in October 2015, and it’s been effective in other councils nationwide. We're basically asking every leader to set aside 25 mintues a year to refresh on important policies that help to protect our youth from abuse and protect our leaders from getting into potentially bad situations. (That still leaves you 525,575 minutes to do other things!) It's really not a lot to ask for such an important topic. If you want to coach sports or teach CCD, you have to go through some basic training. We owe it to our scouts to have leaders who are up to date on the rules that help keep them safe.
Old Colony Council's YPT Guide explains how individuals and units can comply with this policy.
Training Options
Youth Protection training is available as a 25-minute online session, which you can watch on your own at your convenience. It's also offered periodically as an in-person training course, occasionally with a webcast option.
Online is the most convenient way to get this training, saving time for you and others. (After all, the logistics of training several thousand busy adults in person every single year would be nearly impossible... and it would divert volunteer resources from many other important tasks.) But our volunteer trainers can offer live sessions upon request, particularly for those who don't have computers with internet access or who are not able to take online training. Or, if you're a computer-savvy leader, you can do us all a big favor by offering to help some of your less computer-savvy fellow leaders: invite them over, help them log in and take the training, or bring a computer with internet access to a pack, troop, or crew meeting for people to use.
Online Training
Youth Protection Training is available through the Boy Scouts of America national website at http://my.scouting.org. This training will take approximately 25 minutes.
Please read the "Quick Guide" for your part of the Scouting program to learn more about how to set up a My.Scouting account, recover a lost account, and get started.
If everything is working correctly and your My.Scouting account is correctly linked to your member ID number, you'll automatically get credit for taking this training. But you should also print or save a copy of your certificate after you take the training. This will help you prove that you've taken the training in case the automated system does not record it properly.
We have found a few alternative online versions for leaders who need closed-captioning for the hearing-impaired, leaders who need training in languages other than English, and leaders who are unable to connect to My.Scouting.org despite trying many times with different Web browsers, computers, etc. Your district training chair can provide more information.
Online Troubleshooting
If you have forgotten your My.Scouting username or password, please use the links on the My.Scouting.org home page to recover or reset them.
If you're not sure if you have a My.Scouting account, you can start to create a new account on the My.Scouting.org website. After you enter some of your information, the system will check to see if it has any existing records with your name. This can be a convenient way to recover a lost account and avoid creating a duplicate.
If you have multiple My.Scouting accounts, and/or you find that you have multiple BSA member ID numbers, contact our registrar, Debbie Carey, at the council office. She can help with certain types of problems, and she can refer you to the national helpline for more complicated problems that we're not able to fix at the local level. The system may also allow you to merge your own accounts in certain cases.
If the training website does not load properly, or the training video does not display:
- Try a different Web browser (Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.). Some older versions of these browsers won't work with BSA's modern website. The BSA currently recommends Chrome.
- If you have a fairly old computer (say, more than five to seven years old), try a newer computer with newer versions of Web browsers.
- If that doesn't work, or if you can tell that the problem is on the other end, it's possible that the My.Scouting website is temporarily unavailable due to maintenance or high traffic, so please try again at another time. This training is on a national BSA Web server, so it's out of Old Colony Council's control. We've been told that National is working on improving server capacity and reliability.
If you completed the training online but it's not showing up on your pack, troop, or crew's YPT status report, it could be one of two problems:
- The database didn't work. Unfortunately this happens occasionally. Give a copy of your YPT certificate to your unit leader so they can make sure you get credit. See our helpful screen shots to learn how to go back into My.Scouting.org and print your certificate for training you took in the past.
- Your My.Scouting account is not linked to your BSA member ID number. Log into My.Scouting.org and check your profile to see if it includes your member ID number. If it doesn't, add it. (You can get your member ID number from your BSA membership card or by asking your unit leader or committee chair, who should have this number on the charter.) You may be able to edit your member ID number by choosing "Legacy Tools" in your main menu (top left button) and then finding the option to manage your ID number.
Live Training
We've run several live sessions already this year, but we can run more. To request a live session for your pack, troop, or crew, please contact your district training chair.
Supplemental Training: Youth-on-Youth Incidents
The BSA has developed a facilitator guide and presentation to help adult leaders learn about youth-on-youth incidents and how to prevent them.
