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.
A story from California illustrates a couple of important principles that youth organizations should follow when dealing with disclosures of long-ago abuse. In this instance, an adult approached the owner of a gymnastics school and told him that one of the instructors, who was her cousin, had sexually abused her when she was a child….
A case from the New Jersey Supreme Court has some important lessons for youth organizations. The immediate issue involved defamation claims by a fired teacher against an Orthodox Jewish school. The trial court had concluded that resolution of the claims would require inquiry into the religious beliefs of the school and therefore the First Amendment…
When your youth organization faces allegations of serious injury or abuse, the first question you need to decide is whether to commission an internal investigation or an independent one. You will have to weigh several factors when deciding which is best. Internal Investigations – Some organizations faced with reviewing a child abuse claim prefer to conduct…
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…
