Scout leaders lost my kid then blamed him

[Eliza22180]

I am a newbie - seeking some reassurance / a reality check here...either is welcome! Scouts recently lost my child aged 12 for 2 hours at a mountain outward bound place. He was told by scout leaders he could go off and meet the others at lunchtime. Apparently they told him to take a "buddy" but he claims he did not hear this. By the time I'd dropped him off and spent half an hour getting my younger child kitted out against the cold, my older child was missing - alone, no-one knew where he was, no phone, not contactable. I believe this breaks a lot of scouting rules, plus as a qualified teacher I just feel these people are totally amateurish. So easy to set up a list of kids with "buddy" names and ensure each pair had a phone between them. It's a big place; I found him 2 hours later; he was in fine form. I know he is more than mature enough to spend a couple of hours alone outdoors...but surely that is a decision for the parents, not a random scout leader. My anger has been compounded by a) the scout leaders robustly blaming my son (for going off without a "buddy") and b) scout dads congratulating each other since the event on how well it went! I could comment "great, except you lost my kid then blamed him". Frankly, I feel they should stick to their day jobs! AIBU?

@StaplesCorner Probably because I'm thinking please God don't let it be one of the Groups I'm responsible for and therefore about to land on my doorstep :-)

My son only started in scouts after he turned 12.
Okay, so OP lives somewhere people go skiing.
My experience of skiing is resorts, with set runs. Lots of adults and other people around. Lots of contact moments when you catch the chair or towbar back uphill.
The lad was on his own for 2 hours skiiing in this fun place.
Then he found his group again (the scouts).
Nothing bad happened to anyone.

My mom left me skiing on the mountain by myself from the age of 8 or 9. For many many hours. Back in the days of No Mobiles. So I'm not really seeing a problem here.

So was this a UK based dry ski slope? These usually have pretty clear parameters and are fairly small. Was he on site the whole time?

Eliza - I would not have been happy with the situation, either. No, my dss would not have gone off on their own like your ds did, anyway, but I would have thought any scout leader would know that the most dangerous child on the ski slope would be the over confident 12-year old who's better at skiing than everyone else and therefore probably more inclined than anyone else to take silly risks unsupervised than the less confident learners. They may have felt they knew your ds pretty well and that he was a sensible boy, but I somehow doubt they were following the advice of the Scout Association when they let him wander off without knowing where he was going and without making sure he was going with someone else.

Dryslopes are tiny. I mean, you can't lose anyone there, you can see the 1-3 runs in a single glance. OP seems to be describing at least an hour of several adults looking for her son.

Whether anybody is in a scouting group, a friendship group, a school trip, a family holiday; whether they're the best skier in the world; I would have thought it fairly common sense that no one should ever go skiing alone. I'd make sure your ds knows this as he didn't seem to.

Scout leaders are volunteers but they are also well trained and should know better. Yes your son should have listened and taken a buddy but equally they should have checked that he had and that they had a way to contact them, they should also have noticed he was gone. It is a safeguarding issue and you do need to raise it with the group scout leader. A 12 year old going of to ski completely alone could have gone massively wrong!

As for the chorus of 'but they are volunteers' yes Scout leaders are volunteers, that doesn't mean they don't need to use common sense and take responsibility for the children in their care! I do a lot of voluntary work inc. Guides, I was also a Scout leader although only help occasionally now, being a volunteer doesn't mean I am any less careful about safety than I am in my paid job (I'm a TA) when you agree to look after someone elses child their safety becomes your responsibility, whether you are being paid or not!

The story seems to have changed.
Firstly he was told he needed to go with a buddy,mbut didn't, because he claimed he hadn't heard. Now it seems he was told he could ski alone.
Was he told to go with others or told he could go off alone? I'd be surprised if anyone said he could ski alone. Did the leaders confirm they told him/gave permission for him to do this?
It's all a bit odd - doesn't quite fit as a story.

Incidentally, in ski resorts, school trips often find they 'lose' someone. Perhaps someone falls off a t-bar lift and has to ski back to the lifts, or something like this. Usually there's a clear arrangement about what to do in this circumstance, ora leader is centrally located at all times (maybe in a cafe) for anyone to see at any point if they need help. On D of E trips, hikers can get lost. Again, there are measures in place for this. Risk assessments include the risk of people getting lost or separated.

Did DS feel lost? Was he really told to go off alone for 2 hours (not what was said at start) and did he have no idea of how to contact a leader for 2 hours? It all sounds rather unlikely.

Bit of a drip feed OP - I think there is a difference between skiing alone for 2 hours and being on a typical site.

I would be annoyed too - both at the situation which meant this happened and my DS for going off on his own.

Maybe teach your kid not to go off skiing on his own? Sounds like he was better than the others at skiing and decided to do his own thing if you ask me.

Don't let him go on any more trips if you're worried.

If this was a dry ski slope, it was hardly likely to be a vast area - was it a dry ski slope? Why were you there as well OP, at the same time?

When my now 9 year old was 8 he went on an orienteering day with Cubs and wandered off trying to find his brother's group. Apparently he was away from his own group for about an hour. It didn't occur to me to blame the leaders. I told my lad off for not staying with his group. And he was 8. If he gets lost when he's older and a scout I imagine I will probably think that's his own fault too.

I can't comment, because OP hasn't given us enough info:
Where did he go?
Where are as he supposed to be?

Oblomov, he went ski ing, which the leader said he could (by leaders own admission) - the dispute was over whether he was told to take a buddy (but as the other kids were in a lesson, I don't believe that was said, where would he find a buddy??.).

I think the scout leader thought it was OK to let him go alone, til the op asked where he was, then said he told him to take a buddy.

However, it seems to me that 2 12 year olds could have been just as hard to find in a large ski area as one, so surely the problem was saying he could do anything but join the lesson with the others, not the lack of a second 12 year old?

Talk about drip feeding you never said he was skiing on a frigging mountain. Raise it with the gsl they better pray they had the right permit in place. Op you'll get better advice if you give the relevant details up front. Although in general if you want your child to be totally supervised all the time honestly scouts may not be for you /him. The whole idea is that they have safe risk assessed supported adventurous activities.

This is the biggest drip feed every OP. I got the impression he walked to a nearby town. I wouldn’t go skiing alone at all, never mind let a 12 year old. You should definitely raise it as a concern.

Why didn’t you mention he was skiing OP? Your OP is so misleading it’s ridiculous.

Stuff like this is why my son doesn't do Scouts any more.

I volunteered and was pretty horrified by side of the lax safeguarding I saw and have since withdrawn him.

I'm an ex brownie and rainbow leader, and have helped with senior sections also. The risk assessment and management training, plus safeguarding training is rigorous. If yiu think something has gone wrong with the process, ask to speak to the troop leaders next in command.

Eliza, where are you? (as in, which country?) scouting varies enormously once you depart the UK and if there is a shadow of a chance you are near me, I'm not at all surprised. I left scouting for this reason
Bizarrely, I was discussing taking the unit skiing while training a new volunteer just this week.
This isn't meant to cast aspersions on scouters, I was one. But there is a vast vast difference between the UK, other countries, and between scouts and guides. As an adult volunteer responsible for the safety of other people's children, you have to take safeguarding seriously. I've taken 12yos travelling internationally on a 14 day trip as a volunteer (and woken up head-counting for two weeks after I got home). To be so lax you don't know where a kid is? And there are PARENTS saying this is ok? Jeez.

CPtart, don't be silly. Four 11 and 12 year olds weren't unsupervised in the backcountry for 12 hours in poor weather with a map and compass. There will have been checkpoints, adults ensuring that they checked-in within set time parameters, and a plan and search party in case they didn't turn up. at frequent intervals. I also run D of E groups. And have been involved with things like Ten Tors and mountain rescue. Let's not get daft. Even as a D of E assessor you don't ignore a group of children for 12 hours (that happened for one day on one gold exped I ran, with a team of 7 including 5x 18+yos, because they missed a summit checkpoint in heavy fog - we met at the evening campsite instead). Let's not overdo the 'my kids are totes warriors' thing. Independence is a fine skill, but if your scout group are sending four children out in unfamiliar territory for 12 hours, they need reporting as well. However proud you are.

There were groups of scouts doing the competition who set off in different directions at timed intervals trying to evade 'catchers' over the 12 hours. . Like a giant game of manhunt. Some scouts rarely saw other groups depending on the route they took, some never got caught at all over the 12 hours (DS1 in previous years). They were completely unsupervised although had mobile phones for emergencies. No checkpoints. This competition has been running in the North West for several years so isn't just a local scout group thing. Not silliness, just facts.

Whether they need reporting is another matter, but don't assume you know the set up because some of your assumptions were wrong.

Huge drip feed / story changing OP... From your timeline, you were still there at the point he 'went off on his own'? Did you not notice him wandering off? I'm not very knowledgable about skiing but I'm sure if it was taking place in an enclosed centre, at his age he would absolutely know how to go to reception, or find an adult / instructor to ask for help if he was in any way concerned.

Did he or did he not come back after the 2 hour deadline the leader set? Did he miss lunch? If he did head back I'm inclined to say no harm no foul. You said yourself he was fine, so is it worth alienating the leader? Just ask DS to listen more carefully to instructions in future and ask the leader to be clearer. Thereby not blaming any one party for the incident.

CPtart - unsupervised??... Were the mobile phones just to ring parents, then - no official emergency contact??...