jjmaccrimmon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jjmaccrimmon) wrote2007-04-15 08:19 am
jjmaccrimmon) wrote2007-04-15 08:19 am
SCA: New Society (BoD) related mandates that will affect us (long)
Greeting all,
Folks I thought I would share this little tidbit of info that has been under discussion in the Caid youth combat community. I believe it applies here, because many kingdoms have fencers that are allowed to practice and authorize as young as 14 and heavy combat as young as 16 in some kingdoms. Although the discussions started in youth combat, this will be applied to ALL combat forms dealing with youth (not my words). Read and debate. Below is what I've posted in Caid's YC and Rapier lists.
First off, I have children and maintain extensive security / background checks due my work, but this is sounding more like an exercise in liability protection versus actual youth protection. I wish that the BoD and our Society officers would stop assuming that we are idiots in couching it this way.
No matter how you cut it, this is disturbing. When costs are passed back to the kingdoms, it mean the cost is passed back either to the populace as a whole or individually to the marshal and officers in question. Again, I will clearly state, this is not an insubstantial amount of money. If this was a government directive, it would be referred to as an unfunded mandate to the states. In this case, it will mean higher surcharges, more paperwork and a greater invasion of the modern world to our sense privacy.
Master Aaron notes that there were 88 revocations of status and 29 for 'predatory" activities. I'm not a great satitistical analysist but those sound bad till you consider there, over 20,000 active and paid members in the SCA. That's .00145 or .145% of those players. Let's make that an even number of 30 and assume that those 30 heinous people only represent 10% of the actual predators out there (the ones who got caught). That makes it 300 Society wide, which equates to .015 or 1.5% of the entire SCA paid populace are threats. That is a ridiculusly low number. Worth the efforts and costs?
Consider that this will affect all of Caid's youth officers & youth marshals directly. That's about 40 people, but wait, they aren't the only ones affected. This is also affect each and every heavy, rapier and archery marshal in the kingdom too. Why? We have youth under the age of 18 participating in the three weapons forms. Youth 14 and up in rapier, 16 and up in heavy and (correct me if I'm wrong) 14 and up in archery. That jumps the totals to nearly 400. Oh and add in any Knights that aren't senior marshals since they will also be implicitly working with our youngsters too. Is the picture becoming clearer?
Consider that on average, standard background check (basic commercial level) costs $25 to $35 per person. With a little simple math, one year’s worth of background checks will cost (400 * 30) = $1200. Assuming our fellow kingdoms have even remotely similar number and counting 16 mainly US, this is nearly $20,000 in costs, simply shuffled to the individual kingdoms. Notice that I didn’t mention the kingdoms with large territories in Canada, the Pacific Rim and Europe? Kingdoms with large non US territories face the problem that background checks in foreign countries are insanely expensive or illegal to obtain on a non-commercial basis (special license or status is required in the EU for example).
What happens to the small percentage of people who get false positives and are flagged because of a similar name? What happens to the people with a criminal record (non-pedophile) that are flagged? This excludes people from AYSO soccer and the Scouts regularly. Since those were examples, what’s to say this isn’t going to happen in this usage?
This is a really bad, really ill conceived and poorly thought out plan. It was conceived not as a measure to protect children; it was conceived as a measure to protect the SCA Inc from liabilities. This very lame idea will cause more harm than good. Write your seneschals, write the BoD, and write your kingdom Ombudsman. Tell them what you think. It’s time to take back the SCA from the ‘well meaning’ lawyers.
Yours in service,
HL John James MacCrimmon
Youth Combat and Rapier (Provost)Marshal, Kingdom of Caid
Mundanely (Screw PC)
JB Smith, Major, USAFR (inactive)
From the original letter to the Kingdoms and subsequently posted to Caid Boffer/Youth Combat lists:
Forwarded By Request.
Forwarded to the List By Permission of the Society Seneschal.
Background Checks for Youth Officers.
Please release the following information to your Local and Kingdom
officers:
In response to repeated occurences of the SCA having to deal with
abuse of minors by SCA participants, risk to our membership from such
predatorial behavior, and legal liabilities if we fail to execute
proper due diligence, the SCA will be implementing a background check
program to minimize risk of harm to our people and the organization.
This program will revolve around conducting--via a properly licensed
vendor--background checks on all persons wishing to serve in a
leadership or supervisory position where minors are expected to be
taking direction from--or be in the direct control of adults who are
not their parent or legal guardian.
An example of officials who must receive the background check are:
Youth activities officers at all levels, Adults acting as youth
marshals for any martial activity, persons organizing/in charge of
youth activities for an event.
These checks will return a pass/fail status. A pass status will
cause the corporate office to issue a card good for two years that
must be presented in order to be accepted as an official as described
above.
It is expected that this process will be streamlined and simplified
as much as possible without invalidating the value of the background
checks themselves. The cost of the checks will be billed back to the
Kingdoms whose programs these volunteers are supporting.
It is worth noting that these measures are less stringent than those
being used today by the Boy Scouts of America.
Further details, to include the actual process and an implement-by
date will accompany the implementing guidelines to be issued after
the April Board Meeting.
Aaron Faheud Swiftrunner of the Stone Keep OL OP
c/o George L. Reed
Society Seneschal and Vice President of Operations
SCA, Inc.
FAQ
The SCA has long had a policy of parents being ultimately responsible
for their children at SCA activities. We have policies in place
prohibiting a single adult from being alone in supervising youth that
are not their children by birth or legal document. These have not
sufficed to prevent harm to some of our minor participants at the
hands of adult participants.
Since 2002, there have been 88 revocation and denial of membership
decisions rendered by the Board of Directors. 29 of these have been
for conviction of predatory crimes. 24 of these have been with regard
to abuse of minors. It would seem clear that the old policies are not
sufficient to protect our minor participants. Any number greater than
zero of these incidents is profoundly unacceptable.
There are many organizations similar to the SCA in that they have
well-defined programs for minor participants. These organizations
conduct a due-diligence check of volunteers who would like to be in
positions of control, teaching, or supervision of minor participants.
The vast majority of these organizations vet possible volunteers via
background check. There are a variety of methods used.
The SCA feels a responsibility to the wellbeing of our minor
participants and will implement a program of background checks to
enhance their safety.
Some Questions and answers about this endeavor follow:
Q: Are Kingdoms required to implement the Society policy?
A: Once upheld by the Board of Directors, the Kingdoms will have a
timeline to implement the policy or cease offering youth-activity
programs.
Q: I had a background check for work. Can you just use that?
A: No. All checks for this program will be performed according to the
same criteria and by the same vendor for all participants. The vendor
is a licensed, bonded provider of background examinations.
Q: Will the SCA be privy to specific details of my background,
whether I pass the exam or not?
A: No. The SCA will only receive a pass or a fail notice from the
background-examination provider.
Q: Will my personal information be exposed to other SCA participants?
A: No. Information is provided directly to the vendor in order to
perform the background examination, and does not go through the SCA.
Q: How long is my pass status good for?
A: It is planned that the pass status will be good for two years.
Q: Will all existing officers have to be checked?
A: All officers/volunteers with supervisory positions, teaching, or
direct control of minor participants – new or existing – would
require a background examination.
Folks I thought I would share this little tidbit of info that has been under discussion in the Caid youth combat community. I believe it applies here, because many kingdoms have fencers that are allowed to practice and authorize as young as 14 and heavy combat as young as 16 in some kingdoms. Although the discussions started in youth combat, this will be applied to ALL combat forms dealing with youth (not my words). Read and debate. Below is what I've posted in Caid's YC and Rapier lists.
First off, I have children and maintain extensive security / background checks due my work, but this is sounding more like an exercise in liability protection versus actual youth protection. I wish that the BoD and our Society officers would stop assuming that we are idiots in couching it this way.
No matter how you cut it, this is disturbing. When costs are passed back to the kingdoms, it mean the cost is passed back either to the populace as a whole or individually to the marshal and officers in question. Again, I will clearly state, this is not an insubstantial amount of money. If this was a government directive, it would be referred to as an unfunded mandate to the states. In this case, it will mean higher surcharges, more paperwork and a greater invasion of the modern world to our sense privacy.
Master Aaron notes that there were 88 revocations of status and 29 for 'predatory" activities. I'm not a great satitistical analysist but those sound bad till you consider there, over 20,000 active and paid members in the SCA. That's .00145 or .145% of those players. Let's make that an even number of 30 and assume that those 30 heinous people only represent 10% of the actual predators out there (the ones who got caught). That makes it 300 Society wide, which equates to .015 or 1.5% of the entire SCA paid populace are threats. That is a ridiculusly low number. Worth the efforts and costs?
Consider that this will affect all of Caid's youth officers & youth marshals directly. That's about 40 people, but wait, they aren't the only ones affected. This is also affect each and every heavy, rapier and archery marshal in the kingdom too. Why? We have youth under the age of 18 participating in the three weapons forms. Youth 14 and up in rapier, 16 and up in heavy and (correct me if I'm wrong) 14 and up in archery. That jumps the totals to nearly 400. Oh and add in any Knights that aren't senior marshals since they will also be implicitly working with our youngsters too. Is the picture becoming clearer?
Consider that on average, standard background check (basic commercial level) costs $25 to $35 per person. With a little simple math, one year’s worth of background checks will cost (400 * 30) = $1200. Assuming our fellow kingdoms have even remotely similar number and counting 16 mainly US, this is nearly $20,000 in costs, simply shuffled to the individual kingdoms. Notice that I didn’t mention the kingdoms with large territories in Canada, the Pacific Rim and Europe? Kingdoms with large non US territories face the problem that background checks in foreign countries are insanely expensive or illegal to obtain on a non-commercial basis (special license or status is required in the EU for example).
What happens to the small percentage of people who get false positives and are flagged because of a similar name? What happens to the people with a criminal record (non-pedophile) that are flagged? This excludes people from AYSO soccer and the Scouts regularly. Since those were examples, what’s to say this isn’t going to happen in this usage?
This is a really bad, really ill conceived and poorly thought out plan. It was conceived not as a measure to protect children; it was conceived as a measure to protect the SCA Inc from liabilities. This very lame idea will cause more harm than good. Write your seneschals, write the BoD, and write your kingdom Ombudsman. Tell them what you think. It’s time to take back the SCA from the ‘well meaning’ lawyers.
Yours in service,
HL John James MacCrimmon
Youth Combat and Rapier (Provost)Marshal, Kingdom of Caid
Mundanely (Screw PC)
JB Smith, Major, USAFR (inactive)
From the original letter to the Kingdoms and subsequently posted to Caid Boffer/Youth Combat lists:
Forwarded By Request.
Forwarded to the List By Permission of the Society Seneschal.
Background Checks for Youth Officers.
Please release the following information to your Local and Kingdom
officers:
In response to repeated occurences of the SCA having to deal with
abuse of minors by SCA participants, risk to our membership from such
predatorial behavior, and legal liabilities if we fail to execute
proper due diligence, the SCA will be implementing a background check
program to minimize risk of harm to our people and the organization.
This program will revolve around conducting--via a properly licensed
vendor--background checks on all persons wishing to serve in a
leadership or supervisory position where minors are expected to be
taking direction from--or be in the direct control of adults who are
not their parent or legal guardian.
An example of officials who must receive the background check are:
Youth activities officers at all levels, Adults acting as youth
marshals for any martial activity, persons organizing/in charge of
youth activities for an event.
These checks will return a pass/fail status. A pass status will
cause the corporate office to issue a card good for two years that
must be presented in order to be accepted as an official as described
above.
It is expected that this process will be streamlined and simplified
as much as possible without invalidating the value of the background
checks themselves. The cost of the checks will be billed back to the
Kingdoms whose programs these volunteers are supporting.
It is worth noting that these measures are less stringent than those
being used today by the Boy Scouts of America.
Further details, to include the actual process and an implement-by
date will accompany the implementing guidelines to be issued after
the April Board Meeting.
Aaron Faheud Swiftrunner of the Stone Keep OL OP
c/o George L. Reed
Society Seneschal and Vice President of Operations
SCA, Inc.
FAQ
The SCA has long had a policy of parents being ultimately responsible
for their children at SCA activities. We have policies in place
prohibiting a single adult from being alone in supervising youth that
are not their children by birth or legal document. These have not
sufficed to prevent harm to some of our minor participants at the
hands of adult participants.
Since 2002, there have been 88 revocation and denial of membership
decisions rendered by the Board of Directors. 29 of these have been
for conviction of predatory crimes. 24 of these have been with regard
to abuse of minors. It would seem clear that the old policies are not
sufficient to protect our minor participants. Any number greater than
zero of these incidents is profoundly unacceptable.
There are many organizations similar to the SCA in that they have
well-defined programs for minor participants. These organizations
conduct a due-diligence check of volunteers who would like to be in
positions of control, teaching, or supervision of minor participants.
The vast majority of these organizations vet possible volunteers via
background check. There are a variety of methods used.
The SCA feels a responsibility to the wellbeing of our minor
participants and will implement a program of background checks to
enhance their safety.
Some Questions and answers about this endeavor follow:
Q: Are Kingdoms required to implement the Society policy?
A: Once upheld by the Board of Directors, the Kingdoms will have a
timeline to implement the policy or cease offering youth-activity
programs.
Q: I had a background check for work. Can you just use that?
A: No. All checks for this program will be performed according to the
same criteria and by the same vendor for all participants. The vendor
is a licensed, bonded provider of background examinations.
Q: Will the SCA be privy to specific details of my background,
whether I pass the exam or not?
A: No. The SCA will only receive a pass or a fail notice from the
background-examination provider.
Q: Will my personal information be exposed to other SCA participants?
A: No. Information is provided directly to the vendor in order to
perform the background examination, and does not go through the SCA.
Q: How long is my pass status good for?
A: It is planned that the pass status will be good for two years.
Q: Will all existing officers have to be checked?
A: All officers/volunteers with supervisory positions, teaching, or
direct control of minor participants – new or existing – would
require a background examination.
long, been thinking a lot on the topic
However, I'm not against the new policy, the SCA hasn't been keeping up with the times and maybe it is about time. I know of at least one person from my small little group who was banished for the reasons stated earlier and know of one person who would very likely not pass a bkg check. I have also seen the uglyness where sca-dians have protected their own in the face of children being abused. A few other people, myself included, have also been put in the position where we were left alone (no parental supervision) with children (luckily I chose an open area with other adults around).
These new polices, however, won't stop abuse and yes... they will cost money. Originally, they were going to use websites to do bkg checks, however most provinces in Canada do not have these "megan law sites" and the only way to obtain such info is through an RCMP check. You can probably thank us Canadians for the extra costs (which vary from $20-$100, depending on area).
SCA groups, overall, do need some serious education though... I'm not sure about groups elsewhere but many people here have a strange idea of what the SCA is permitted to provide for their children and the youth officers are permitted/not-permitted to do. At least, from all of this, there should be more awareness!
no subject
So what's your alternative suggestion?
no subject
Background checks are notoriously bad in the US for catching a substantial percentage of offenders. States fail to report or keep bad digital records. Offenders move and don't report in. The Federal gov't doesn't adequately transfer or police databases for accurate or up-to-date info. Private security check businesses are not consistent. Compound that with Privacy Act information that could be mishandled or released accidentally.
Given my druthers, I'd say the benefits of these checks don't outweigh the potential for damage. I know that's a huge statement there considering we both have kids but hear me out. What happens to the first person you applies for a position, a 'public' position and gets rejected for a flawed or mistaken check? Remember that information in the various kingdoms has a habit of slipping out through cracks, crevies and such fairly regularly. The person would be as good as dead in the Society if not for real. Too extreme you think.. Remember two years ago when I merely asked for a private meeting regarding our baronial situation in Dun Or? A less than stable member of our group twisted it and posted her version of events on 5 major lists. I recieved threats of serious harm via anon e-mails and even a few direct ones. Think about how you would react if you heard 'so-in-such' was a possible child pred...? The court of public opinion would destroy them regardless if it was true or not...
no subject
even if its 0.0145 or what ever the percentage is its still better to get them out
In the UK everyone who deals with children has to have a criminal record check before they can take up their role and thats how it should be to protect the most vulnerable members of society
no subject
The question is risk versus benefit in this issue. With an large budget, training resources and the protections of (Crown) law to punish anyone releasing privacy information, I'd actually support this. The reality is the SCA operates on a shoestring budget, frequently begs for volunteers on a local level, and has no certification training requirements for privacy in regard to personal information. Character assassination is a sport to some people in the SCA.
I agree that we MUST protect the most vunerable members of society. In this case, background checks will only offer a false sense of security as only the we'd only be able to (hopefully) track the registered offenders. We've long had a two person rule in place for when any adult is working with children. It's worked well. Nothing substitues for responsible parenting though. The point may be moot as this may be the intrepretation of US Federal laws. Implimentation is the question that disturbs me.
There's a large and very well considered po and con on this subject being discussed in the SCA Community here on LJ. I'd honestly and wholeheartly recommend checking out the discussions.