[Closed] This family who sued the Scouts…

It really depends on how it was said and implied doesn't it, were they trying to get shot of him or something else?

Alternative point of view: the kid was singled out and excluded from activities based on one incident and the fact that he was autistic.

Volunteering is great but it doesn't justify discrimination.

Regarding the money, it doesn't sound like they immediately went for legal action. Part of the settlement went to charity and part is in a trust fund for the kid.

Link?

Was he singled out though? It sounds like they said that in future he required extra supervion, which means that a parent needed to come to off site activities.

The kid did a runner. Which is pretty serious. The RA for subsequent trips would have to include this.

I be that the leaders walk away and the pack folds.

Link?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43519296

Beverly Gleeson said the group's decision would "single Ben out"

Whereas this case...

[img] [/img]

I think the scout leaders were wrong. I suspect so do the scouts organisation, which is why they have apologised and said they will investigate the incident.

the BBC article says the lad does not require the same level of supervision at school that the scout leaders said were necessary.  Also, he didn’t “ do a runner”, the article says they were in an indoor facility and he ran a short distance away from the group. Something quite understandable for someone on the autistic spectrum to do if they are experiencing an overload. Hopefully the Scouts organisation can learn form this and offer training or education to its volunteers and leaders to have a better understanding of some of the difficulties some of their members might have. That must be a better solution than exclusion or discrimination.

Found it. There's always more to these things than is reported, sounds like a situation that was poorly handled.

However...

I can't see how the lawsuit was anything other than mercenary. What damages have incurred that warrant a payout of £42000?

I'm sure the devil is in the detail - maybe wrong to assume but I can't see them getting £40k compensation if the Cubs took all reasonable measures to try and include him. If it did just come down to he needed 1:1 supervision on field trips I don't think it's reasonable to expect the Cubs to provide this but I don't think a judge would either.

As a member and past member of several volunteer organisations, I dislike immensely the idea that people sue over stuff that in the olden days would have been sorted out by appropriate discussions between individuals, but there seems to be more to it than meets the eye here.  eg: "breach of privacy and under data protection legislation - claiming emails and a briefing to parents had identified them" - if that has been defamatory, etc. to either them or the kid, I might be pissed off about it too.

We’ve seen this from both sides locally, one group ended up disbanding because of two incidents with parents who couldn’t see that the leaders were volunteers and not trained to deal with the needs of their kid and they weren’t willing to work with the group to find a balance between the freedom that the parents thought their kid should have had but the extra care and supervision he needed. On the flip side my sons group have 4 gepreat leaders who have had real success with parents willing to give extra help where needed and as a result we have such a diverse and accommodating group that a few kids are allowed the freedom and independence that their parents weren’t expecting and didn’t feel any entitlement to.

i guess  we don’t know all the ins and outs of the case but the whole thing makes me feel uneasy.

This young lad had been in beavers, cubs and had moved to scouts,had been away previous times,but this time he was ill leading up to the trip,ended up going a day later,and then having an episode,parents were phoned up twice,second time there were three people were trying to control him,i think the group said he couldn't go on anymore trips,difficult one,,as are we expecting volunteers to deal with everything,got to question the parents for letting him go in the first place.Parents have just been on Victoria,

 I might be pissed off about it too.

Oh, me too, don't get me wrong. I don't know how £40k would lessen that though.

Beeb says parents are both lawyers so quite plausible they'd 'default to legal' on this.

Ultimately this is a real shame for all concerned as the fall out will only have a negative impact on what is probably already a fragile institution (Harry please comment) in terms of more RA / arse covering for volunteers and less time to build rafts and get mucky.

53:40 on here (thanks Decky)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09x5jfw/victoria-derbyshire-26032018

We're lucky that we have a good bunch of leaders and parents. We did an 8 mile hike yesterday with 12 kids and 10 adults. I wouldn't have been happy if it was 12 kids and 3 adults, especially if one had a track record of needing extra help. Also, I wouldn't send my daughter on an activity like that. It wouldn't be fair on, or safe for, anyone involved.

offer training or education to its volunteers and leaders

As if the volunteer leaders don't have enough training to do as it is!!  It would be better to have a mandatory training session for parents to explain that all the leaders are volunteers and scouts isn't the cheap childcare alternative that some of them think it is.

The lawyer parents were asked to help out at the cub pack, but rather than give up some of therir precious time they sue the scouts.  I bet those lawyers are on far more money than any of the leaders at the scout group.............

Agree with OP, too much blame game and it’s attracting hopefully the wrong kind of press towards these bullyish parents.

My first reaction was against the parents.

i just listened to them on the show, and it seems the issue was the reaction of the scouts, emailing/briefing against the parents. My local experience of scouting is the organisation is stuck in the 1950s! The local leaders are amazing & get the utmost  Respect though.

I help coaching local kids cricket, and one of the groups has an autistic kid. The head coach in that group is amazing with him. Personally I couldn’t cope. I know the parents too, and they are fully supportive of the coach in whatever decisions he makes, just glad that their kid can be involved.

boils my dixie.

Do you also hate meeces to pieces?

This has left me wondering what kind of person thinks that suing a charitable organisation, staffed by volunteers, for the sole benefit of children, is a good idea?

I've no doubt they were wronged, but was this really the best course of action.

Having had first hand experience of the difficulties scout groups have finding leaders or even just parent helpers, as someone said above, I'd be surprised if that group is still running in 6 months time.

I help coaching local kids cricket

CHEAT!!!

I've been a Beaver Leader for many years but I can see people walking away now. The amount of red tape & regulation is already a burden. I have no doubt there will be a whole swathe of updates to the Scouting POR resulting from this.

I've had a few children with conditions where we have had to request the parent stays with them. The vast majority are totally supportive & understanding. Sadly, this lads parents fancied flexing their legal muscles against a volunteer organisation. Shame on them for that as its a totally ridiculous & needless way to resolve it. What folk fail to realise is that if a child decides to go off you need min of two adults to fetch them back, otherwise your left with a Safeguarding issue. Take two adults way & the rest of the children are put at risk. I'd give up my warrant before I'd put children at risk & sadly, I think that's exactly what will start to happen.

There are no winners here.

This has left me wondering what kind of person thinks that suing a charitable organisation, staffed by volunteers, for the sole benefit of children, is a good idea?

I’ve no doubt they were wronged, but was this really the best course of action.

This.

 I suspect so do the scouts organisation, which is why they have apologised and said they will investigate the incident.

The cynic in me suggests that organisations may settle / apologise for things when they don't actually think that they are in the wrong, as it can be substantially cheaper than going to court and winning would be. Not saying that this is the case here, but it certainly can be.

So rather than volunteer to help they decided to sue. Awesome. So, who will provide the activities etc. for their son when volunteers, who let's not forget do much, much more than rock up on scout night, decide that enough is enough and walk away. Having a sibling who is profoundly autistic means that I can have a degree of sympathy with the parents but when it comes to extracting £42K from a charitable organisation run by committed volunteers (that word again) I'm afraid that sympathy vanishes.

[i]natrix wrote:[/i]

The lawyer parents were asked to help out at the cub pack, but rather than give up some of therir precious time they sue the scouts.

Where are you getting that from? In the interview linked above they suggest that they had been along on trips with cubs and that everything had been fine, but on going up to scouts they'd discussed it with the group and agreed that he would be fine by himself despite offering to go (and offering again when an issue arose).

Clearly that's only one side of the story and it doesn't quite all ring true, but then the Scout Association do seem to be sincere in their apologies and making changes. I still think there must have been some other way to handle this than suing for money, but then lawyers will lawyer.

TBH I reckon both sides have got it a lot wrong. Are they really happy that their current course of action is the best thing for their son? I'm sure having him outed on national TV will help him enormously.

Money grabbing ****s.  Both lawyers btw.

Can't see this encouraging people to volunteer for the Scouts....

Scouts seems to be dying round my way. A lot go to cubs, but @10% move up to scouts.

Wrong of the parents on many levels. Where do they think the £40k came from? Bet it would take a pack 15 years of subs to accrue £40k and thats before any exes. Sad. Matching white BMW's or Audis wouldn't surprise me while Akela rocks up in his Picasso full of tent poles.

There's a lot we aren't being told here, from both sides, I'd like to see full details but of course it hasn't gone to court. The fact that the Scouts made an out of court settlement and have apologised suggests something went wrong and they didn't want it running to court and setting a precedent.

Our group did an amazing job with an autistic Scout, but it needed the help and support of his school and parents to make it work. The school even paid for his support worker to go to an international jamboree so he could go with the troop. Security at the jamboree soon brought him back if he disappeared. We have another lad just joined who needs 121 support, and there's a few at various points on the spectrum in between.

We are lucky that our leaders have had the training and support to make the "reasonable adjustments" the law requires. But it's a proper dilemma for volunteer based groups. No one in Scouting at county level or below is paid for what they do. Trying to get an extra volunteer to support someone who needs it will be tricky. No volunteer, no reasonable adjustment - is the law now expecting a local group to find a volunteer every time one is needed? Does a reasonable adjustment mean an activity for 20-30 kids must be cancelled because one extra volunteer can't be found for one of the kids?

Really tough on voluntary organisations to get it right.

>Really tough on voluntary organisations to get it right.

Esp if the parents just sue rather than volunteering to help out.

Whatever the details I think taking £42K from a charity is a pretty low thing to do.

>Whatever the details I think taking £42K from a charity is pretty low.

Esp one which looked after their kid using unpaid volunteers!

A concern I have is just because the scout leaders were volunteers and giving up their free time,  does not mean they can discriminate against a child, possibly due to not understanding the individuals needs. If you are running a club open to all children then you will realise that some children take more care or time than others. Singling  out these children is not the right way to go. There will be times when some children will have to be excluded but this should be based on the child’s behaviour rather than the leaders lack of understanding the situation.

As has been mentioned above, there are some exceptional volunteers and leaders who go out of their way to try to understand and support all people they work with resulting in a very inclusive club. It would appear, somewhere with this group this has not happened. Blaming the parents because they are lawyers is missing the point.

Playing devil's advocate to the above.

At what point does the price of inclusivity in terms of time for the volunteers and cost for the organisation (training is not free) make providing the service unviable.

I'm not saying all efforts to include all children shouldn't me made, they should but everything comes with a costs and the scouts are reliant on the good will of volunteers and subscriptions from members.

The parents being willing to take £42K is very low and I'm not sure that them being lawyers is missing the point.

[i]roper wrote:[/i]

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">As has been mentioned above, there are some exceptional volunteers and leaders who go out of their way to try to understand and support all people they work with resulting in a very inclusive club. It would appear, somewhere with this group this has not happened. Blaming the parents because they are lawyers is missing the point.</span>

I think a lot of people are blaming the parents for choosing to sue because they're lawyers, which is a fair point. As I wrote above, it seems there is fault on both sides - clearly something went wrong in the troop in the first place, but their method of forcing a resolution of the issue is also wrong.

Clearly somebody made a mistake but these are volunteers, other parents, kindly souls who generally want to bring fun and a broader outlook on life to other peoples kids. If we expect them to deal with everything and everyone as if they were a professional then we are sunk. The kids will have to stay home on their computers or on street corners hassling old ladies and shopkeepers.

Like many above I am a Cub volunteer (section assistant). I have also helped out in mtb coaching with a lad with aspergers. In the mtb setting we try to be equal and inclusive but sometimes there's too much going on for the lad and he needs a quieter bit of 1 to 1 and then he learns the skills and all's good and the group is then back together. But it's much tougher in Scouts from a safeguarding point of view and you would suddenly need an additional 2 leaders if for any reason you were out of sight of the other leaders. So it would be really easy to be short-staffed in an instant. More volunteers is the answer, but like most places, getting parents to volunteer seems increasingly hard. Regardless of all of this, suing the Scouts is really low. Yes there has been an issue,  but what sort of folk go legal when bit of a chat, lessons learnt and a call for some volunteering could have resolved this. Bonkers.

If you hold volunteer groups to professional standards as if they were a profit making enterprise, you'll just end up with no volunteers.....

That's not the same as excusing all unprofessional behaviour, just there has to be a compromise.

NB I help out with the local Hockey club and have had a dozen under 10s to look after on my. There is one autistic kid (or similar) but his dad is always with him, so that's one less thing to worry about.

Personally I am not comfortable with the parents taking the money either. However I am more concerned with a young child experiencing discrimination because his autistic needs appear not to have been met in the scout pack.

As has just been said, good leaders ‘bring fun and a broader outlook on life..’  not exclusion or discrimination due to lack of understanding of the challenges faced by a child.

Aracer asked

Where are you getting that from?

I got it from the BBC article linked to above:

Ben Gleeson joined a group in Hertfordshire in 2015, but was later told he could not go to camps or take part in athletics without supervision.

So, if one of the parents had gone along to supervise their child it would have been OK.

Incidentally, as mentioned above Beverly Gleeson (the mum) said the group’s decision would “single Ben out”.  Unlike the parents decision which has led to his name and face being plastered all over the news, that won't single him out I'm sure, oh no.

Incidentally our cub pack where I'm a leader has an autistic cub who is far easier to deal with than some of the other cubs who are just poorly behaved.

Yes there has been an issue,  but what sort of folk go legal when bit of a chat, lessons learnt and a call for some volunteering could have resolved this. Bonkers.

How do you know that wasn't tried or became not an option because of the 'briefing and emails' that seem to form part of the scenario?

While I'll reiterate I'm not comfortable with the situation clearly there's something in it that seems to mean the scouts were happy to settle out of court and to keep the details private.  There's an assumption they just went straight for the cash, which I'm not sure is valid.

#takes2totango

What folk fail to realise is that if a child decides to go off you need min of two adults to fetch them back, otherwise your left with a Safeguarding issue. Take two adults way & the rest of the children are put at risk. I’d give up my warrant before I’d put children at risk & sadly, I think that’s exactly what will start to happen.

This is what worries me (I'm a Asst. Beaver Scout Leader). We have an autistic child and for weekly meetings and activities, we know how to deal with him and get on fine.

For camps/sleepovers (we are a new leadership team, planning our first), we have one of his parents PVG'd and seemingly happy to come along. There are specific problems/risks that we have identified with the beaver and the problem is exactly down to ratios and safeguarding. That one parent can basically do a job that would require two leaders. That's two leaders who can't be included in normal ratios, so it becomes even harder to get the adult cover to run events. It's hard enough to get enough suitable adults - we need four to cover our colony away from the hall, five if we expand (we have a waiting list). We only have three leaders.

At what point does the price of inclusivity in terms of time for the volunteers and cost for the organisation (training is not free) make providing the service unviable.

The bar on "reasonable adjustment" is set really quite high. I don't think many people really appreciate how far courts push that standard. Organisations have to go a long way to justify anything other than full inclusion. What is legally seen as reasonable would, to many people, seem unreasonable.

I've got a nephew that's autistic and can definitely see how it'd be difficult for a charitable organisation relying on volunteers to adequately support him without one of his parents being willing to provide some of that support.

Stuff like this will just see the likes of the Scouts disappear as it won't be viable to run them any more.

How do you know that wasn’t tried or became not an option because of the ‘briefing and emails’ that seem to form part of the scenario?

Ok, fair enough - we don't have all the facts. Yes, maybe all reasonable options were exhausted. Maybe there's more to this story. But because of the legal route taken, we now have a dangerous precedent that could easily exhaust the capacity of volunteer organisations to cover every eventuality, or certainly ones where safeguarding is taken as seriously as in Scouts.

However I am more concerned with a young child experiencing discrimination because his autistic needs appear not to have been met in the scout pack.

As has just been said, good leaders ‘bring fun and a broader outlook on life..’  not exclusion or discrimination due to lack of understanding of the challenges faced by a child.

Fair point, however...

If you hold volunteer groups to professional standards as if they were a profit making enterprise, you’ll just end up with no volunteers…..

Still, I'm sure that the £42K they leeched from the member's subscriptions and fund raising activities of children and volunteers will provide a crumb of comfort for them.

#edit - apart from the "leeching" comment, which I stand by my post sounds a little harsh. I worked in an organisation (privately run) providing educational and social care services for children with SEMH issues and ASC diagnoses and the cold hard facts are that some children need provisions that volunteers simply cannot provide. Sad for those involved but true. Therefore is we are saying that all children *must* be included then ultimately none will. Unless someone else has a solution that I'm missing.

The parents being willing to take £42K is very low and I’m not sure that them being lawyers is missing the point.

It was a dick move regardless. The point is that simply, being lawyers they used their working experience of the system to spot a situation they could exploit and made some money out of it.  I imagine what annoyed them the most was that they could no longer have a break while someone else looked after their (through no fault of his own) demanding son.  Surely they should just go and help out directly if the other volunteers did not believe they were equipped to do so?  Not sure how this end result helps their son exactly?

Obviously you have to have a degree of sympathy for any parent and their children if they have condition that makes it difficult for them to do stuff that most people would take for granted.

But how many cases like this will it take before the volunteers in all sorts of organisations just say "that's it, this is now too much hassle and it has become so far removed from what it is meant to be that there is no point any more, so the group is dissolved"?

Yak

But it’s much tougher in Scouts from a safeguarding point of view and you would suddenly need an additional 2 leaders if for any reason you were out of sight of the other leaders. So it would be really easy to be short-staffed in an instant.

Could you elaborate/clarify?

I'm reading that as saying that you don't need 2leaders if out of sight in cubs. Is that what you meant?

>Could you elaborate/clarify?

If you have a kid who is likely to run off or end up out of sight, you need more leaders....

This is a tricky one - we all believe in inclusion and equality, we all believe the Scouts to be a worthwhile and positive environment for your children, however they are run by humans and they are the flaw. Sometimes communication breaks down, people get alarmed by the consequences of unknown situations, some people only see issues and create unnecessary drama. Did the Scouts do something wrong? - most likely or they would not have settled out of court. Are the parents wrong to sue? If this is the only avenue left open to them to prove to the Scouts themselves that they did wrong, then no, the parents should take them to task. If it was your child being wrongly excluded or labeled would you be happy with no recourse?

On the other hand...the parents are Lawyers and cleary they'll burn in the Big Fire so let's leave them to it 😉

The point is that simply, being lawyers they used their working experience of the system to spot a situation they could exploit and made some money out of it.  I imagine what annoyed them the most was that they could no longer have a break while someone else looked after their (through no fault of his own) demanding son.

You seem to be 'imagining' a lot into what is a settled out of court situation.

You might be right, you might not.  I could equally propose some pretty nasty things that the scout group suggested other parents and kids do to the kid in question so that he wouldn't want to be a member of the group and the problem goes away of its own accord*

Would that change the situation in your eyes or is it still a dick move?

* not suggesting they did, but they 'might' have.

This has got me thinking…

We’re going on camp soon with another pack (we feed into the same scout group). 30+ kids. 7 warranted leaders and probably 7 parents.

Because of my daughter’s condition I am effectively there as her carer. I’ll be able to do all of the chores around the base, but as soon as she goes off anywhere I’ll go with her. It wouldn’t even cross my mind to ask somebody else to do this. She’s my kid. She’s my responsibility. She won’t know that I’m acting as her carer she’ll just think that I’m one of the responsible adults for her group. That’s how to look after a child with needs without excluding them or singling them out. This happened last year with the other Type 1 lad and his dad. The dad in question was working on the first night, so they came to camp a day late. There was never any suggestion that we look after the lad on our own despite my knowing how to look after a Type 1 Diabetic.

The disadvantages are that I’ll be a designated driver all weekend, so no cheeky beers for me when they’ve all gone to bed (at 3 am) and I’ll have to carry the insulin and needles with me at all times for security purposes.

The advantages are that I won’t have to spend all of my time cooking whilst they go off climbing trees, as happened last year, and that my daughter will have a brilliant time with her mates doing something that sadly too few kids these day get to do.

...and the cold hard facts are that some children need provisions that volunteers simply cannot provide. Sad for those involved but true.

And sadly the battle between law and goodwill only has one outcome.

Still, I’m sure that the £42K they leeched from the member’s subscriptions and fund raising activities of children and volunteers will provide a crumb of comfort for them.

The biggest issue I have with this is not actually the case itself.  Both sides did something wrong and I am not sure we know all the facts, but one thing that the parents failed to consider was a much wider issue with volunteer run activities.  This case will no doubt turn people off from either joining or volunteering for scouts, or groups like that.  It will also  make groups more risk averse and all sorts of things, including kids with any kind of requirement for extra help or supervision, will stop being offered because they do not have the volunteers to cover the perceived requirement.  In short it was a selfish move, to cap a lot of poor behaviours on both sides that led to the settlement.

The fact that they took the settlement and still kept some money in trust, meant that there is a financial element in their motivation.  If they had then paid for relevant training, or resources, to be developed to help stopping this happening again then that would be a fair outcome.  As it is it looks like they have profited from the move then it does not look good on them.

No good has come from this, but I do hope the kid gets to find somewhere he can have fun away from his parents and be safe, but the chances of that just went down.

I’m reading that as saying that you don’t need 2leaders if out of sight in cubs. Is that what you meant?

Aside from ratios to run the activity (which varies section to section and is based on a risk assessment), a 1:1 ratio is completely banned. You can have 1:many and many:1, but if one young person (which includes young leaders) is alone for any reason, it needs two leaders. Safeguarding is serious stuff.

Quiet discipline chat behind closed doors = 2 leaders

Child wanders off around a corner = 2 leaders to bring them back

Toilet run (even at 3am) because they are beavers and can't predict their bladder beyond 15 seconds ahead = 2 leaders

Leaders are not experts in the wide variety of different conditions young people might have. A former leader of ours worked for the council integrating autisitic children into mainstream education, that was quite eye opening and helped us settle our autistic child in. By far the easiest way to bring in the expert help is to bring in the parents...  We have to do plenty of training (in our free time) as it is. It'll be an hour a week they said... 🙂

While there are undoubtedly idiots in every walk of life (including Scouting), I don't believe most leaders set out to discriminate but there is a limit to our ability and our time. Is it better to not run an activity than to discriminate by insisting on having parents of special needs children present? Tough questions.

CBA to read the article again but didn’t it say the matter was settled by the Scouts insurers?

Yep.

Also sounds like the insurers we the ones who decided to settle

Same as any insurance - once you hand it off, decisions are up to them.

edit to add: When I was heavily involved in running sport, our club was paranoid about someone turning up wanting to do adaptive/para rowing. We didn't have the facilities or the volunteers, but the consequences of saying no could be severe. We did have a blind guy for a while, he could fit in with sighted groups but he held back others (he had a good enough time though). But a wheelchair athlete would have scuppered us. I don't think we could have provided the opportunity.

[i]surroundedbyhills wrote:[/i]

Are the parents wrong to sue? If this is the only avenue left open to them to prove to the Scouts themselves that they did wrong, then no, the parents should take them to task. If it was your child being wrongly excluded or labeled would you be happy with no recourse?

The question is what was their motive behind suing? Was it simply to get the Scouts to acknowledge something was wrong? Because in that case, they could have donated all of the money to a suitable charity rather than keeping "Ben's portion" in a trust. I note that the Scout Association is a charity. I expect it comes across as jealousy, but given they're both lawyers I'm not sure why their son needs the money held in a trust for him when it seems unlikely he will be short of sources of funding - not when effectively it's depriving funding for activities for other far less affluent children.

edit: hadn't noticed the above about insurers, but it doesn't fundamentally change my feelings about the parents keeping some of the money

As an ex-Scout and ex-Scout Leader this story horrifies me.  Scouts has been and continues to be as inclusive as it can, but given the fact that it relies of volunteers means that it does struggle to cope with the non-normal stuff.  They are not trained professionals and do make mistakes.  But increasing levels of red-tape and cases such at these limit what they can do.  I look back at horror at what I was allowed to do as a Scout (in my first troop in the early 1970's a 6" knife was part of the uniform and it had to be sharp) but compared with the limitations today, I would have become very frustrated.

I am sure that large part so of the story are not in the public domain, but it does not feel right to sue the Scouts

[the fact] the parents failed to consider was a much wider issue with volunteer run activities.  This case will no doubt turn people off from either joining or volunteering for scouts, or groups like that.

I suspect you'll be right, but also to counter it will also force all organisations to look at whether they are as inclusive as they can be / need to be and put appropriate policies in place for that.

In the end the person disadvantaged by it has been the kid himself, and that's the situation we want to avoid.  Is financial damages suitable recompense, probably not but maybe that's what it takes to focus minds, sadly.

On the discrimination issue what should happen in the case where they organise an event, but can't get the additional assistance they need for the odd one or two kids that have special needs? I can imagine it is hard enough already to get the volunteers without having volunteers with the right training and other 'approvals' to cope with whatever special needs kids they might have? do they cancel the event for everyone else so as not to discriminate? I know the principle sounds all well and good on paper, but in reality it just means that everyone loses out.

Surely the parents have a duty of care for their own kid when they hand them over to make sure the assistance their child requires is satisfactory? I know if I had a kid with special needs I'd be super attentive with any organisation I was handing the kid over to.

Seems a very difficult, almost impossible, situation to resolve just leading to everyone missing out.

The fact that the Scouts made an out of court settlement and have apologised suggests something went wrong and they didn’t want it running to court and setting a precedent.

Or it would have cost more than £42K to fight so they (or their insurers) made a dispassionate, commercial decision that it was cheaper to settle. Could be either.

I suspect you’ll be right, but also to counter it will also force all organisations to look at whether they are as inclusive as they can be / need to be and put appropriate policies in place for that.

Or decide that that it is simply not viable to run the service and close. See the above concerns of the rowing club. It's sad but true that unless significant funding is made available then not everyone can do everything.

My youngest son goes to a Beaver group that until recently had an autistic lad attending , the leaders and volunteers persevered for months trying to deal with his issues but were seriously struggling.

The lad himself was very aggressive towards all the other Beavers and eventually the group leader had to ask that one of his parents be present at meetings in order that they could get on with the activities. His parents have removed him from the group as (in their words) 'it's too much trouble' , shame for the lad but the group all seem to be enjoying the sessions a lot more now they aren't being walloped all the time.

[i]sadmadalan wrote:[/i]

I look back at horror at what I was allowed to do as a Scout (in my first troop in the early 1970’s a 6″ knife was part of the uniform and it had to be sharp) but compared with the limitations today, I would have become very frustrated.

Do you have recent experience of Scouts? Knives may not be 6" ones any more or part of the uniform (as a Scout in the 80s I had a knife which I often carried, but it certainly wasn't a part of the uniform even then), but my 11yo has now got a folding pocket knife because he sometimes needs it for Scout activities. So it's not quite as sterilised as you might think and probably hasn't fundamentally changed all that much (they also seem to be making fires every other week). Though also see:

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/a-shocking-indictment-of-the-youth-of-today-paper-dart-content/#post-9882899

You can carry a knife with a blade longer than 6" if you have a good reason, but suspect these days most folks would stick with a folding 3" blade where you don't need a reason.

I note that it was 42K + 'costs', so it's quite possible that mum and dad billed for their time at the usual rate.

Settling doesn't automatically mean the scout group has done something wrong, just that someone has balanced the possibility of losing in court, with much higher costs and potential damages, and decided it makes sense to wrap the thing up now.

I have a great deal of sympathy for Ben - I wish he had parents who were prepared to be around at a scout camp (as I certainly would be in these circumstances) so he could enjoy the activities his mates are doing without placing an unsustainable burden on the volunteers who give up their time for free. And I hope that this case, and the extra guidance that will follow, don't mean that his mates, and other children, miss out in future because a troop doesn't have the resources to offer the activity.

If you have a kid who is likely to run off or end up out of sight, you need more leaders….

Yep, got that bit. The bit that flummoxed me was the implication/statement that it was different between cubs and scouts.

based on a risk assessment), a 1:1 ratio is completely banned. You can have 1:many and many:1, but if one young person (which includes young leaders) is alone for any reason, it needs two leaders. Safeguarding is serious stuff.

Quiet discipline chat behind closed doors = 2 leaders

Child wanders off around a corner = 2 leaders to bring them back

Yup. Excellent explanation. And appreciated, but all I was asking was whether/why it's different between scouts and cubs

But it’s much tougher in Scouts from a safeguarding point of view

That's the bit I was referring to. It's tougher in scouts than.......

Sorry, just seen this again. Thanks for filling in the ratios and no 1 to 1.

I meant in cycling  coaching 1 to 1 is ok but not in beavers,cubs, scouts.

From what I have read the settlement is not so much for the exclusion from activities but from the data confidentiality breech .  Some form of circular was sent round all the other parents revealing confidential data about this child

Edit for an error in my post above. You can't have 1 to 1 under British Cycling rules either.

From what I have read the settlement is not so much for the exclusion from activities but from the data confidentiality breech .  Some form of circular was sent round all the other parents revealing confidential data about this child

Perhaps. If that is the case then somebody at Scouts deserves a bollocking for being stupid. But suing them?

Good luck with them trying to get him in to any club in the future. Unfortunately the kid and family are now marked.

they did not exclude him they said he needed 1-1 support which his parents [both lawyers FWIW] managed to argue was effectively exclusion.

Whilst it would be great to live in a world where everyone had the skillset to deal with an autistic child and its reaction to events I think its a tad unrealistic to expect this of volunteers*. I dont see how this issue has progressed the rights of disable people either.

* I assume a proper risk assessment and meeting** would have been a better method of explaining this to his parents but they probably just want him to lead a "normal " life. unfortunately he has autism and at times this will not be possible

** its what we did when employed to do this sort of thing and essentially people who were known to panic to change/not follow instruction could not safely do a number of activities where behaving like this would endanger them. Anyone want to see them panic when abseiling? Me neither so they were "excluded" from specific activities not entire events.

I haven’t read through all of the background, but it does seem a bit ‘point-provy’ by the parents.

Why couldn’t they be there to support? Were they using the group as, effectively, cheap babysitters so they could take some time off?

If they were that bothered, surely they would want to be there to assure their son(?)

It is not entirely dissimilar to the Little Mix sign language case from a month or two ago.

On the flip side, we do need to be careful that the prominence being given to these stories isn’t part of media push to set people against each other. Look at the prominence given to stories about benefits cheats (with the cost of fraud in the benefit system actually being very minimal), whilst largely ignoring the far greater issue of many previously self-sufficient working families falling below the line and genuinely needing help.

Always question the source.

Really interesting reading back on this - a lot of details unknown as to what really happened when, but it's worth remembering that the issues were local and not necessarily the result of Scout Association policy.

I'd like to think that one day the parents will realise that they won the battle for their child, but may have lost the war for other kids with additional needs.

Worth mentioning that my lad is an Explorer and Young Leader in our group, helping with Cubs. The additional support that the autistic lad in Beavers requires means that MCJnr gets asked to help out there as well some weeks if others can't make it. Next year is his GCSE year, he won't be able to give Scouts 3 nights a week. Which means that the colony may not be able to hold a meeting for any of the kids if they can't get enough helpers, as they can't single out the autistic lad.

Which means that the colony may not be able to hold a meeting for any of the kids if they can’t get enough helpers, as they can’t single out the autistic lad.

Which is a horrible situation without any winners, so surely the lad’s parents could step into the breach? Having children with or without special needs confers responsibility, after all.

dannyh - slightly more complicated situation for this particular kid, but that is usually the case.

Even then, a lot of our leaders and parent helpers work shifts for 2-3 big local employers, quite possible that even if one of the lads parents did help, we could still be short one night. And we are a relatively successful group with a lot of great parent helpers.