Welcome! This forum has a treasure trove of great info – Scouters helping Scouters! Just a heads up, though - all content, information, and opinions shared on this forum are those of the author, not the BSA.
My council, and I suspect a growing number of councils, are requiring Youth Protection Training (YPT) to be effective for the whole term of membership, This requires taking YPT annually.
“Mandatory - Youth Protection Training”, Total time: 72 minutes
Course: “Overview and Policies v2”, Total time: 24 minutes
Course: “Sexual Abuse v2”, Total time: 25 minutes
Course: “Bullying v2”, Total time: 13 minutes
Course: “YPT Certification Test v2”, Total time: 10 minutes
YPT is also available in Spanish
Retaking a course notice
Per BSA Learn Center course detail screen:
WHEN RETAKING THE COURSE YOU NEED TO SELECT “CANCEL” WHEN ASKED TO CONTINUE FROM WHERE YOU STOPPED LAST? OTHERWISE THE TOC (Table of Contents) AND BACK BUTTONS WILL NOT ALLOW NAVIGATION TO REPEAT THE COURSE.
Online completion notice
Per the BSA Learn Center catalog:
After completing all three modules (first three courses) and passing the exam, it may take up to 24 hours to see your certificate in My.Scouting.
I have seen that in the case of merit badge counselors where that registration renewal does not cycle with unit charter renewals. The new and renewing counselors had to provide YPT certificates with expiration dates extending beyond the MBC registration period. That should no longer be the case. Individuals now receive automated reminder notifications, and Scoutbook removes those with expired training from the published lists.
In my council units and charter organization representatives have a “calendar-year” term. This may not apply to units in your council, but here is the deadline in my council. Per an email from one of my council’s field directors:
Our council policy requires that all registered adults have a Youth Protection Training Certificate that does not expire during their registration period. To that end, since recharter for January 1, 2022 - December 31, 2022 is currently ongoing, you will need to retake your YPT now to ensure that it does not expire at any point next year.
If you fall under this criteria, please make sure that your YPT is retaken by December 15, 2021 so that there is no break in your registration with the BSA.
Unfortunately, it’s not really in your council’s control. If a recharter is done and everything is in order (which does not include YPT covering the registration term), it will post. Such policies are desires, not real requirements since there are paths where they aren’t or can’t be enforced. There would have to be national changes to actually enforce such policies.
As a practical matter it is within the control of the Council Advancement Committee. The committee has the discretion to approve merit badge counselors on the basis of qualifications submitted for each merit badge. The MERIT BADGE COUNSELOR INFORMATION form (https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34405.pdf) requires disclosure of YPT dates and submittal of the certificate. It is not difficult to imagine the committee would view requiring YPT coverage through the registration period as a failsafe method within their discretion.
Council Advancement Committees approve merit badge counselors, locally publish the list, and upload it to my.Scouting.org and Scoutbook. Not all units use Scoutbook which deletes counselors with expired YPT. Absent the committee’s culling step at registration they would be left with the task of policing their locally published list throughout the registration year.
In an ideal world everyone would renew their YPT prior to expiration. In the real world there eventually comes a time when you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. Remember, it’s for the children.
We have heard back from the Internet Recharter (IR) developers. IR is operating under the requirements of the national registrar and making sure YPT will not expire prior to the posting of the recharter for all adults in the unit.
There is no place to report website issues with my.scouting or Scoutbook. I have tried to complete the YPT requirement online, and for the fourth attempt again tonight, it failed again at the exact same spot; where you have to click on the 2 stories toward the end of the sexual abuse section v-2. This time, I tried a different computer, I’m on a very fast Internet connection, and using Chrome Browser. Previously, I used Firefox and Edge. So, now I’ve used 3 different Web browsers, 2 different computers, and 2 different Internet connections it always fails at that exact same spot. When I try to resume from where I left off, it starts me off at the beginning of the sexual abuse V-2 section.
Also, the panes in the page are not fully formed on the laptop screen, and you cannot see the radio buttons to press them. In most cases, you can see the top but not the words on them. There is no setting to adjust this, and you cannot scroll to see the buttons. I do not have a desktop computer to see if it looks the same on that platform.
At this point, I am done trying to meet this requirement until someone at BSA addresses these issues. My YPT is still good through July 2022 according to my dashboard. Please let everyone know when you have resolved the issues, or go back to allowing in-person YPT. Thanks
I’ve never understood why councils require YPT every year. It is the exact same course every year. It never changes. If they updated it yearly with the most recent child safety/protection information, it might be worth taking it yearly, but I do not think it really is at this time.
@AaronWentworth - I can almost guarantee that your issue is related to window scaling and zoom/view settings. I just had someone complete YPT recently and no issues noted.
YPT online training was updated this year. I just retook the online YPT and the courses were labelled V2 (version 2). Sometimes only part, not all of the YPT courses are changed.
Updating videos takes time and money, as well as a review of legal and liabilitiy insurance related issues.
Child safety/protection information is locally defined. For example, California Assembly Bill 506 became law on September 16, 2021. This prompted a review of YPT, finger printing and background check requirements for councils in California.
If not required by law or liability insurance requirements, retaking YPT more frequently may be necessary for some because positions can have different registration periods or council rules.
If you are concerned about this issue, I suggest discussing the issue with your local council.
I think there reasoning is that they want to ensure no one can be listed as a registered leader in a unit after YPT expires at any point throughout the year. So, refusing to recharter someone is easier for them than chasing people mid-year.
@AaronWentworth - your first line of support is your local Council. They were charged to have professional staff trained and able to help - if they didn’t do that, well, that’s bad on them.
I am a volunteer. I am not a professional. I just know who to contact when there is an issue.
The issue you describe is rather vague. After you have clicked on both pictures, to see both scenarios, what happens next?
I had the same problem. I kept trying to find a way to get to the button below the name. There is no button below the names! The answer is click on the pictures of the people on the upper right of the screen, not the names. Bad design guys. Dave
No PMs due to no way to enforce YPT rules. The development is 100% employees with no option for volunteer development. Support is odd. No volunteer can submit tickets, only council employees can. There is an awesome group, though, of official Scoutbook User Advisory Council members who patrol the forums nearly 24/7 helping other volunteers. They have a set of tools, while limited at times, can handle about 80% of the issues. They are awesome.
Bill, you got to California’s AB 506 before I could. That bill is going to be interesting for Councils. It requires a LiveScan Fingerprint which is not free. How is that going to pan out? I’ll give you my guess.
AB506 requires Calif folks working with kids to have ‘current’ training for whole year. The only way to meet that is to have everyone have it at the beginning of the year. Hence the Get it done before Jan 1st mandate.
And for the rest of you, Calif is crazy as anything, but the stuff we do tends to get copied. So, get ready.
This thread is interesting; and a problem. Since so much of scouting is based on volunteer commitment it is key that there is consistent rules and expectations in order to prevent confusion. A lot of this sounds like localized “we can add to, but not reduce” which is going to just confuse and drive away volunteers, which in the end is going to reduce opportunity for scouts.
