About This Blog
Youth-serving organizations take on a serious responsibility when they open their doors to children and other vulnerable people. Fulfilling that responsibility well requires two things working together: a safety culture strong enough to prevent harm, and independent investigations credible enough to find the truth when someone alleges mistreatment.
Youth Services Law covers both. Posts examine the legal landscape, practical decisions, and organizational choices that shape how schools, camps, churches, colleges, faith-based groups, and community organizations protect the people in their care and respond when something goes wrong. The goal is the same in every post: precise, useful guidance for child protection and investigations.
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Featured Post
September 1, 2026
As summer programs wind down and school-year programs start up, many organizations pause between training cycles. That pause is worth using to look at your training program. One of the first questions anyone asks after something goes wrong is whether your organization trained its staff. The real...
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As summer programs wind down and school-year programs start up, many organizations pause between training cycles. That pause is worth using to look at your training program. One of the first questions anyone asks after something goes wrong is whether your organization trained its staff. The real question is not whether a training happened, but…
Earlier this week, I presented a poster at the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN)‘s 2026 World Congress in Melbourne. Researchers and practitioners from child protection systems around the world presented their work, and one theme surfaced again and again: a safeguarding policy on paper does not guarantee safe practice. That…
Most youth-serving organizations treat the field trip permission slip as a formality. Parents sign it, someone files it in a folder, and everyone moves on. That habit creates real legal exposure. A permission slip is not just paperwork. It is evidence, and in litigation, it can become the single document both sides fight over. Describe…
When Pawleys Island Community Church’s then-pastor Don Williams addressed his congregation about allegations that the church had allowed a sex offender to have access to children, he did not engage with parents shouting questions at him. Days later, his resignation letter described staff as “unfairly caught in the crossfire of this past week” and asked for prayer….
Tom Rawlings and I are presenting a poster at the ISPCAN 2026 World Congress next week. The poster, “Creating a Just Safety Culture within Youth-Serving Organizations,” makes an argument we think every YSO administrator needs to hear: a written policy does not protect children. A culture that supports it does. The Boy Scouts of America, the Catholic…
Georgetown County, South Carolina prosecutors have charged three former Pawleys Island employees, including its former pastor, with obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Sheriff Carter Weaver said an “abundance of evidence” showed the three placed children at risk by concealing a volunteer’s status as a convicted sex offender. In addition, four plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against the church, the…
Every August, as new volunteers sign up for the school year, the same question crosses an administrator’s desk. How thorough should this person’s background check be? The instinct is to answer by job category, treating volunteers as one group and staff as another. The dividing line that actually matters is access to children, not the…
Some makes a claim about a staff member or volunteer, and your lawyer tells you to start pulling all your records. You think, “We have records on this person somewhere.” That’s usually true. The problem is that “somewhere” can mean three different systems, two email inboxes, and a filing cabinet nobody has opened in years. When…
Most states treat many statements by your employees as binding admissions. That doctrine is not a distant legal concern. In the days and weeks after a serious incident, the emails your program director sends to parents, the conversations your operations director has with staff, and the statements your organization posts on social media can all…
A Texas school district just spent four years defending a retaliation claim before it finally won. Dr. Johnathan Castille, a special education administrator in Port Arthur, sued, claiming the district retaliated against him for reporting abusive teachers. Earlier this year, the appellate court ruled in favor of the school district. I’m not an employment lawyer, and I won’t…