News

As part of our ongoing commitment to abuse prevention, the Boy Scouts of America is updating the adult supervision requirements for overnight activities. This update enhances the minimum “two deep leadership” requirements by additionally requiring every adult present on overnight activities to be a registered member of the Boy Scouts of America. These adults must submit an adult application and registration fee, undergo a criminal background check, a volunteer screening database check and must complete mandatory Youth Protection training.     A limited exception for parents and legal guardians of Cub Scout youth attending overnight with their children is planned due to the family centric nature of Cub Scouting. All Cub Scout Packs, Scouts BSA Troops, Venturing Crews, Sea Scouting Ships, Exploring Posts, council, and district overnight programs will be required to comply with this update by September 1, 2023. The BSA encourages early adoption prior to the effective date. This updated Barrier to Abuse can be referenced as part of the Guide to Safe Scouting, Youth Protection and Adult Leadership section, Scouting’s Barriers to Abuse. Youth Protection and Barriers to Abuse FAQs will be expanded to include additional FAQs as they are developed. Thanks to every leader and parent for their help in keeping our Scouts safe.

Over the past several years, the National office of the BSA has been migrating towards using technology-based platforms throughout the organization.

You may have noticed numerous changes to the Boy Scouts of America’s Adult Volunteer and Youth Applications. Many of these changes are predicated by changes in local state laws related to background checks, disclosures, and records retention expectations.

To ensure you have the most up-to-date version, the Jayhawk Area Council has placed a link to the national website for all membership applications (youth and adult) on our council website. You can find this link on our Resources Page by scrolling down to Membership Applications. 

This electronic version is much more user friendly, has re-arranged the sections to ensure the critical questions the volunteer needs to answer are before their signature line and, most importantly, is a fillable pdf!

The advances in technology of My.Scouting.org and BeAScout.org allow someone to complete an application and pay registration dues directly. We encourage all our units to use the BeAScout.org option for the following reasons:

1. – Adult’s personal information like social security numbers is protected.
2. – The Criminal Background Check process, which is our first line of defense in our commitment to Youth Protection, starts immediately.
3. – The new volunteer gets quicker access to My.Scouting. This is especially helpful for new leaders for program planning as well as advancement tracking for the Scouts.
4. – Unit leadership can focus on delivering programs versus running down registration fees.
5. – Today’s parents are accustomed to paying online. No more checks or cash exchange, which makes the unit treasurer’s job much easier.
6. – Makes the unit roster accurate, no more trying to decipher people’s handwriting.
7. – The unit will always have access to the most recent version of the Adult/Youth application.
8. – It saves time, money, and trees.

Please discard any previous versions of the Adult Leader Applications as there is information on those that is no longer accurate. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Jayhawk Area Council registrar who can assist you in this transition. She can be reached at Cheryl.Collins@scouting.org or at 785-354-8541.