Chief Scout says some good stuff then misses safeguarding

Absolutely. Just as there are countless schools refusing to get caught up in all this, the majority of adults centre children and their needs & understand their safeguarding responsibilities. The issue is at the top of all these organisations (also see Girl Guides) who produce guidance and materials from Stonewall etc that bear no relation to children's needs. You then get inexperienced or gullible adults who use them.

I can not speak for other Groups, but I never discussed social transitioning, sexual identity or pronouns with any of my adult volunteers, let alone the YP (and to be honest I don't know of any group that has).

As for the safe guarding training, as I said above its really not that bad. I already have my L3 safe guarding, but still completed the scout one last night (we have a new system for recording our training) and to be honest for volunteers it covers everything we need.

Every adult gets a copy of the Yellow Card and a poster is displayed in our meeting hall for the YP and their parents to see. If you want to see it, its on the UK Scout webb site, just google "Yellow Card".

That's why it's unbelievable that the scouts haven't joined up the dots. Yes, they need policies relating to mentally vulnerable children thinking their sex is wrong. But uncritically promoting transgenderism and encouraging volunteers to dabble in social transitioning, discussing sexual identity, pronoun nonsense etc gives those adults who do seek out working with children for the wrong reasons, opportunities to discuss issues that cross boundaries.

There's a wealth of life enhancing issues the scouts work on with children. Sexual identity and changing sex shouldn't be on that list.

The chief scout needs to be aware of just how much Scouts has paid out - so far - for abuse cases. According to the BBC, they’ve paid out more than £6 million to abuse victims. More claims are coming through given how long these things take to go through the motions. I’m surprised their insurers don’t take a firmer line on their policies where safeguarding risks still exist.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65881603.amp

Your best bet is contact your district lead volunteer, if you have had no joy with the group lead volunteer.

Not sure what you mean by "the existing problems, along with meaningful safeguarding and inclusivity measures that are truly inclusive" do you mean the group or Scouting at a national level?

I have had a couple of YP that brought challenges with them, to the extent one of my volunteers left Scouting as he believed the parents where intentionally with holding information from us (they were).

The major problem is I have 7 adult volunteers (who all work full time) spread across 3 sections, over 2 nights, with an average of 10 to 15 YP in each section. There is also the minimum 2 adults at any meeting rule.

When we have one YP who becomes aggressive as his meds wear off (and realistically needs 1 to 1 supervision) I just don't have enough warm bodies.

@K9medic2 I am not blaming the leaders of this group, they didn't know. This was down to older teens "solving" things themselves.

However, I would welcome an acknowledgment from the Scouts' leadership of the existing problems, along with meaningful safeguarding and inclusivity measures that are truly inclusive.

Its not, we are supposed to be all inclusive, though in reality that is not always possible.

I would put that down to your daughter being in a group that has missed the point of scouting and in reality needs to read the scout promise.

I found it really difficult to comprehend the differences between groups when i first joined. Think of it as individual clubs that buy into a national body that publishes a general rule book an helps with insurance etc.

Each group has a lot of autonomy, so long as we follow the major rules. for example my group is very outdoor orientated, but I know others that spend a lot of time building electronics.

If you are interested in our safeguarding policies, and to they are better than a few I have seen, then google UK Scouts Yellow Card.

He doesn't know much about what is going on in the Scouts then, does he? My daughter certainly came across prefered pronouns in her unit. She has SEN, struggled with the new pronouns and was aggressively corrected. This contributed to her dropping out of the scouts. Why is gender identity more important than the protection of children with SEND?

It happens (and females who say their are men). The general rule is an Adult Volunteer is never alone with a YP anyway, so for us its not such a big deal.

From a personal point of view this is not a question that should be left to a volunteer, or even a sports governing body, to answer. This is something that needs a definitive ruling from Government.

Yes, I noticed that his example of being kind was a little kid who just wanted their pronouns to be they/them and why would anyone object to that. I wish Nick Robinson had pressed him with a different example ie when a grown male volunteer says he's a woman. I would have liked to have heard him talk about that.

Latest version of POR states

"Can boys and girls share accommodation? Yes they can. This is subject to the Risk Assessment of the Nights Away Permit (NAP) holder. The Nights Away Permit holder has the ultimate responsibility for the event so it will be their decision. However, this decision must take into consideration the views of the young people and the views of the parents, and give the parents the opportunity to voice any concerns they may have.
The NAP holder and/or Leader in Charge must also consider that different age groups may present different issues and this must be taken into account when accommodation is being arranged".

In my group - 4 years (squirrels) to 14years (at 14 scouts leave us and go to district) I have never had a YP ask to be called a different "Pronoun" and I have no intention going down that road (I don't ask the adults either). Every body gets called by their "jungle book name" or first name (or "how you" if I cant remember it at the time).

Politics, religion and sexual orientation is a purely personal matter. We do visit different places of worship (I always do a pre visit before taking the group). But the YP like letting off steam, lighting fires and building things, so that's what we do.

Having been both the leader and the teen side - larger group shared tents give far less opportunity for anything other than stupid games than single or pairs in tents.

Single tents, prime shagging opportunities.

Our unit does not do mixed sex tents. I don't know any that do

Both my kids are in Scouts and the local groups have no truck with gender issues. It's single sex tents all the way and strict protocols around safeguarding. Again, we have a fair number of ND scouts and the older teenagers are very protective of the younger.

Dwayne sounds like he's barely given any thought to the subject. Which would be fine if it wasn't a social contagion and safeguarding problem amongst teenagers.

There’s no reason gender should come into it. It’s sex that matters.

I was a young leader back in the day and there’s no way I’d would have wanted to be the one responsible for a mixed sex group in a tent.

The Scouts need to get a handle on this. It’s traditionally been the educated middle classes who have had the time and inclination to volunteer to run the scout groups and these are exactly the sort of people walking away because of what they now see as madness and a lack of safeguarding.

Isn't the king ultimately top scout? That may not be right but if so my god they need to get a grip on this.

Not true for our group thank goodness. Sexes have separate tents which is just as well. My son found the boys so outrageous he wouldn't camp with them again. People forget what teenaged and preteen boys can be like especially in a group especially in an environment where they aren't supervised every minute.

I think their head office needs looking at and the scout store. There must be employees pushing this agenda within. (The store is overwhelmed by pride badges and flags - it's indoctrination.)
However, I've always found our local Scout leaders to be very sensible and able, which is one of the reasons people go to Scouts.

Given that you can have mixed genders share tents, and have been able to for many years - many wouldn’t see it as a big deal.

Many would say far better to have a mixed group of 6 in a larger space than individuals or pairs.

Apparently he is married and a father. Does he have daughters?

I wonder if he'll realise it matters when a 15-year-old trans girl wants to share a tent, unsupervised, with his daughter?

I have a feeling we will be hearing a lot more from Dwayne via the bbc. He's quite an individual for many key messages and issues.

He needs to get his messaging right.

That is good to hear from both of you, @fabricstash and @RedToothBrush 's dh

Many years ago the Scouts / Cubs had an appalling record of paedophiles accessing children. They worked incredibly hard to develop effective safeguarding / recruitment procedures. So sad that they're throwing that away by introducing age inappropriate beliefs that children can change sex and encouraging adults desperate to be allowed to talk to children about sex change and gender identities.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/12409469/trans-scout-gabby-smith-gavin-horstead-school-cubs-porn/