[Closed] This family who sued the Scouts…

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://singletrackworld.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.

“the legal route taken, we now have a dangerous precedent that could easily exhaust the capacity of volunteer organisations to cover every eventuality”

I may be wrong but I would have thought because it was settled out of court no legal precedent has been set. Which may be one of the reasons why the Scout association has settled, that and the value of £40k vs legal fees potentially much much higher.

Still agree it’s a new low taking the Scouts to Court at all.

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

No shit.  This is STW, were you expecting an informed and well research opinion?  I'm making assumptions based on the BBC article I read.  God knows what the truth is.  Who cares, this is trial by media.

It might not technically be a "legal precedent" but it is definitely going to make a certain type of person sit up and take notice.

>Having children with or without special needs confers responsibility, after all.

You'd think so, but not necessarily. My mother was a special needs teacher and some parents would give their kids laxative before dropping them off at school, so they didn't have to deal with the mess at home....

>It might not technically be a “legal precedent” but it is definitely going to make a certain type of person sit up and take notice.

Parents who think they can make a quick £42k from having a disabled child...

When you draw parallels with the workplace...

Surely uther Scout groups could now mitigate this by saying that reasonable adjustments will be made to accomodate kids in these scenarios, and that this reasonable adjustment is that a parent, carer or other trained individual is present.  Kind of goes back to the OP but recognising the issue officially and having a conversation upfront.

There are an awful lot of wild assumptions being made on this thread.  Maybe as the facts are rather thin on the ground we could stop imagining the events and motivations as well as determining guilt.

Just a thought.

^ there's also a lot of empathy and considered opinion.  This thread seems more sensible than most TBH.

I've been in similar situations within cubs and scouts a few times - where a child's needs/behavior is impossible to accommodate during things like camps or excursions, without additional leaders/helpers (which are extremely thin on the ground).  It was handled by having a conversation with the parents of the child, explaining that without additional parents volunteering to come along, the trip/camp would not be viable and would have to be cancelled entirely...... Perhaps they would like to volunteer?

The BBC article I read contained the disclaimer that the Scout Association disagreed with some of the facts as presented by the boys parents.  I suspect this was to do with the parent's willingness to step-in and help out - for the simple reason that if the parent was willing to attend, there would be absolutely no need to "exclude" the child from any activity whatsoever.

As others have mentioned, some parents really want to be involved and enjoy sharing these experiences with their children, others literally don't get out of the car to drop-off / pick-up their kids.

There are an awful lot of wild assumptions being made on this thread.  Maybe as the facts are rather thin on the ground we could stop imagining the events and motivations as well as determining guilt.

Just a thought.

Oh, grow up.

It seemed to me the disagreement centered around the Scouts saying the parents had to be there for everything and the parents arguing in other similar situations (e.g. school activities) they weren't expected to be there for every type of activity so it was unreasonable for the Scouts to impose that condition. The breakdown could have just been the Scout leader not wanting the extra hassle so refusing to discuss options with the family and sticking to the 1:1 for everything rule.

Given both parents are working maybe it was impossible to always be available for 1:1 supervision so it would have meant him missing out on a lot of the activities. Sure you could say work less etc. but that might not always be feasible.

Ofc this is all speculation, they could just be money-grabbing scum who expect everyone to bend to their wishes but they certainly have some balls going on TV etc. and making a big deal of this is that's the case as I'd have thought there's plenty of journos that would love to expose them if they were.

I assume that all Beaver, Cub and Scout leaders on here have checked their email this morning...