One area that we’re seeing many youth organizations get caught these days is lack of clear rules about contact between adults and young people on social media. Social media is an area where groups can encourage positive communications. Welcome messages, group chats and email lists can be great ways to build morale among team members…

All youth organizations need to guard against grooming. The problem is that the characteristics used to describe both good mentors and predatory groomers are often similar, making it hard to tell the difference from outside the relationship. We’ve had numerous clients say, “Until we found out about the abuse, we thought he was the best…

I learned from my colleague Tom Rawlings’ Substack that a recent opinion from the Iowa Supreme Court takes a new look at the issue of parents’ leaving children unsupervised.  Paula Cole went shopping, taking her infant with her and leaving her five other children, ranging in age from 5 to 12, home asleep.  Predictably, two…

The start of the school always brings competing demands from parents involved in ongoing custody disputes.  Schools can get caught in the middle when parents bring those disputes into the school.  Now is a good time to establish some ground rules with your parents that may help you avoid becoming part of the drama. Get…

We have seen a tendency for youth-servicing organizations (YSOs) to concentrate all of their efforts on preventing sexual predators from entering the organization. While hardening your organization against pedophiles is an important goal, placing too much emphasis there can distract from other equally important concerns. First, there is no foolproof way to “detect” sexual predators….