Exactly.
It is not the responsibility of 'all the other leaders' to do shit. Mainly because it makes the situation worse not better.
The in touch system has been developed over many years to deal with complex situations and to deal with parents who start going completely bonkers, when the leaders onsite have enough shit to deal with and all the leaders at home all aren't harassed to death by parents. Its also why, for the most part, kids are discouraged from contacting parents whilst on camp. Because parents have a habit of BECOMING a massive part of the problem and hindering what the leaders need to do.
Camps have a limited number of leaders assigned to them for a reason. To stop leaders 'burning out' and to spread the load. To protect the kids onsite. Because of too many cooks spoiling the broth. To ensure there is a clear boundary between parents, kids and leaders. One that is more 'professional' than 'pally'.
Each unit should have a communication system thats being set up from the beginning - exclusively for an international camp. It shouldn't be connected to regular groups and thats for a reason. This is precisely to keep things separate. To give some emotional distance too - indeed there are safeguarding purposes to this. Its not appropriate for a leader to be randomly contacting parents with sympathy if they are not involved with a trip for this reason. Its overly friendly.
You wouldn't expect a kid's previous yr3 teacher to be contacting yr6 parents if there was a problem on a trip expressing sympathy when they know fuck all about the situation on the ground, have no additional information and were just doing so 'to be nice'. It'd be fucking weird. So why this daft expectation of scout leaders from parents???
Its clear UK Scouting have made the right call here. Its a fucking mess thats going to, with the best will in the world, going to take time to sort. The crisis point has been passed - this situation now has been assessed to be better than a lack of very basic food, sanitation and appropriate shelter. This is the priority. Not parents. The next priority is to get the event up and running so the kids are doing things again. Which will take time. Again the priority is not the parents.
The responsibility and pressure of doing all this is intense. And genuinely there is very little that any uk leaders can do here. The last thing they need is extra pressure from parents. The UK leaders can not pressure their contacts in Seoul on behalf of the parents. Its just not fair to do so.
To put this into context, one of the people we know there is an 18 year old IST. She's capable but been thoroughly been thrown in the deep end here. She's from a scouting family. DH has known her for years and years. She's the type of person, parents are effectively piling on the pressure with by saying they aren't getting enough information. Information she is actually unlikely to have herself even now.
I refer back to the point about there being no one in charge for South Korea and everything being a bureacratic mess with multiple parties all being involved. Think what thats like in terms of reorganising accomodation and new activities and how this is being passed up and down between the Embassy, Scouting UK leadership and Korean Authorities. Then how this filters to the unit leaders at the last minute (who probably know little more than the kids at this point).
The kids are clearly telling parents that they are in a safe location now - just like the leaders have - its just that they are bored, fed up, 'feeling flat', and its not the experience they thought they were going to get. But they are ok. They are not in hospital, they have food and water now, they have appropriate shelter and the rest is being sorted and is a work in progress.
If you don't trust the core unit people taking your kids abroad to be able to deal with a crisis appropriately, then don't fucking send your kids abroad. Let them do their job and to inform you as they feel appropriate. Unless your kid is telling you that they are still in danger, then calm down or you are in danger of being the problem. I stress here the involvement of the British Embassy to ensure the safety of the kids involved.
I also stress that no news is pretty much good news in this situation. If there was a significant problem involving a particular child, that information would be being passed on. (Indeed it would be impossible for leaders to keep it secret with mobile phones at this stage in whats happened - in the past there wouldn't have been the same level of contact).
In this scenario putting pressure on leaders is deeply unhelpful and frankly unfair.
We are now at a stage where its not ideal and its all a bit crap compared to expectations, but there isn't the same safety concerns as even a day or two ago. Parents are now at the angry stage rather than the confusion stage - and that is ALWAYS taken out on leaders who aren't responsible for the mess and know very little more than parents. They need to remove the emotion from this, be practical and logical, because having a hissy fit and showing this to their kids only adds to the problem because the kids feed off that. That in turn makes it harder for the leaders on the ground.
Given where things now are at parents realising how they can help rather than add to the problems really is in the best interests of the kids.
Parents sat at home, winding themselves up, expecting a sympathetic ear need to consider that its not just their child. The in touch contact can't do individual messages of support and sympathy. They aren't a counselling service nor have they been trained to be. Think about that. They are there to give emergency information. Thats it. 'Just a simple message' isn't just a simple message - its multiple messages to multiple people that runs the risk of initating multiple full conversations to which you don't have the answers and therefore making parents more not less anxious. Hence why the very basic nature of the 'in touch' person was devised in the first place. To stop leaders getting themselves in a pickle and adding fuel to the problem.
The information put out today by the press, particularly in Korean, laids bare the extent of the problems and why the decision to relocate to Seoul was made and why it was an appropriate call. Its been a logical rational decision by UK Scouting.
One of the major fallouts from this will be leaders who quit because of the pressure and unreasonableness from parents. Its an absoluete guarentee. And parents are liable to make it harder for future international camps to run - even though this mess isn't remotely a problem with individual units risk assessments and planning (that lies with south korea and world scouting). They are the ones who will get the abuse and hassle and will give up hours and hours of their free time (don't forget that as a volunteer job, they will have real life commitments such as full time jobs too - so doing shit until 3am over the last week is a big deal on top of that. Its not the same as being a paid employee to deal with issues).
To say that people who give up hours, days, weeks of their lives to do something for these kids and give them opportunities and to suggest they somehow don't care enough because they haven't sent a text message is really is the height of being insulting.
And I've STILL not seen a GOOD compelling argument about what leaders should be doing thats actually going to help. There is very little to communicate to parents in reality.
DH HAS been worrying about about the explorers he knows there. He's worried about the young leaders he knows there. He's worried about the more senior county and district leaders who are hard to recruit in the first place. He's ALSO now worried about the future and the opportunities of the thousands of kids who weren't lucky enough to go to Korea. How much more it will cost them and how they will have to help shoulder the cost of the mess. How there will be so many more lost opportunities - basic ones, not 'holiday of a lifetime' level ones.
To suggest that leaders who haven't sent a simple one line message don't care is really not appreciating all the many many hours over years given to scouting. This crisis effects everyone in scouting massively. So being given lectures about who is allowed to be concerned, accusing them of being patronising and in what way and how doesn't wash. People who have been in scouting for years should know better than anyone how the system works, how and why the in touch system should work and why parents can be part of the problem rather than support for the kids at crucial moments, why distance is appropriate, why information can't be shared - and it actually is concerning to read about leaders who don't get that. Thats quite aside from the points about how there is a whole world of internal politics over which leaders kids got to go and which didn't (and why there will be a whole load of social awkwardness there in). Ultimately though, if parents who happen to be also leaders don't have the trust here in the unit leaders and intouch contact, then the leaders 'doing the graft' to 'below expectations' might as well just give up scouting completely. Why should they bother? They obviously aren't good enough for theh organisation huh?