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
July 16, 2026
On July 17, 1938, pilot Douglas Corrigan filed a flight plan from Brooklyn to California and landed in Dublin, Ireland twenty-eight hours later. He blamed a faulty compass. Corrigan’s story earned him the nickname "Wrong Way Corrigan" and a permanent place in aviation folklore. A...
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SEO Term: skilled trades pathways for foster youth youth organizations Trade School Is Not Second-Best: What Youth Organizations Can Do to Change the Conversation This week your calendar has two observances that belong in the same conversation. National Foster Care Day fell on Tuesday. National Skilled Trades Day is today. That overlap is coincidental. The…
Kids Who Carry More: What Foster Care Month Means for Your Organization May is National Foster Care Month. For administrators and direct-service staff of youth-serving organizations, it is worth treating this observance as something more than a social media post. It is an invitation to ask a practical question: does your organization understand the foster…
SEO Term: child safety culture youth organizations What Happens After Child Abuse Prevention Month Ends: Sustaining a Child Safety Culture Year-Round I have defended many youth organizations in litigation involving harm to children. Let me tell you what the worst moment in a deposition sounds like. The attorney asks: “When did you last read your…
Child Abuse Prevention Month — April 2026 I often hear the phrase “we’re a trauma-informed organization” in conversations with YSO leaders. It appears on websites, in grant applications, and in parent handbooks. And in most cases, it means that someone on staff attended a workshop, received a certificate, and came back with a vague sense…
National Take a Chance Day — April 23, 2026 National Take a Chance Day, observed every April 23, celebrates stepping outside your comfort zone. Try something new. Take a leap. Embrace the unfamiliar. For most people, the invitation feels exciting, even liberating—a nudge toward the adventures and opportunities that caution has kept at arm’s length….
Child Abuse Prevention Month — April 2026 The child safety policies governing most youth-serving organizations today emerged from a physical world. They address one-on-one contact in rooms, buildings, and vehicles. They establish supervision ratios for in-person activities. They create protocols for transportation, overnight programming, and facility access. And they leave largely unaddressed the space where…
Child Abuse Prevention Month — April 2026 Nothing tests an organization’s commitment to child safety like an allegation against its most trusted, most popular, most beloved staff member. The youth pastor who built the program from the ground up. The coach who took the team to state championships. The teacher every parent requests by name….
Jackie Robinson Day — April 15, 2026 Every April 15, Major League Baseball pauses to honor Jackie Robinson. Every player, coach, and umpire wears number 42. The ceremony commemorates the day in 1947 when Robinson walked onto Ebbets Field and broke baseball’s color line—a moment of extraordinary courage that changed American sports and American culture….
Child Abuse Prevention Month — April 2026 The phrase hangs on bulletin boards and appears in staff handbooks across the youth-serving sector: “If you see something, say something.” It sounds empowering. It places responsibility on every member of the organization to serve as a watchdog for child safety. And in practice, it fails—consistently and predictably—because…
Child Abuse Prevention Month — April 2026 Summer programming season approaches fast, and with it comes an influx of new staff, expanded activities, and extended hours of direct contact between adults and children. For youth-serving organizations, summer represents both an extraordinary opportunity to serve young people and a period of heightened vulnerability. The casual atmosphere,…