Protecting youth is our top priority. We are excited to announce some new layers of protection the State of California will be introducing next year as part of California Assembly Bill 506 to supplement and enhance our already robust Youth Protection Policies.
Starting next year, California law AB 506 will require all youth-serving organizations to take additional steps to protect children from neglect and abuse. As a result of our existing commitment to safety, we are already meeting several of the requirements including having two leaders at every meeting and clear policies for reporting abuse for all registered adults. However, two new requirements will be added next year to strengthen our Youth Protection efforts with our volunteers and families.
These new requirements are for everyone 18 years of age or older regardless of Boy Scouts of America registration status and who has direct contact with, or supervision of, children for more than 16 hours per month or 32 hours per year. They consist of:
We are still gathering details for our timeline and implementation, but we wanted to share this news with you. True Youth Protection can be achieved only through the focused commitment of everyone in Scouting. We thank you for your dedication to keeping all our Scouts safe in Scouting and we will be sharing more details about these new requirements in the coming weeks and months.
California Assembly Bill 506 became law on September 16, 2021. AB 506 requires administrators, employees, and regular volunteers of youth service organizations to:
The Boy Scouts of America Youth Protection Training standard is already required of all registered adults. This includes our two deep leadership policy, and the criminal background check performed with an adult volunteer’s registration. Although this appears to meet most of the requirements of this law, the BSA’s routine criminal background check does not meet this standard. As a result, a background check with finger print scan will also be required. Fingerprinting is already required in many schools, sports, and other organizations such as the Catholic Churches.
We have previously updated you on our council’s YPT policy, which requires that all registered adults 18 and over maintain YPT yearly training.
The leadership of the Orange County Council is working with our National Service Territory 3 to develop a consistent plan for all California BSA councils to fulfill the law’s requirements. As with all major news and changes to our local policies, look for upcoming news releases and information on our website for more details in the coming weeks.
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