FIRST Youth Protection Program

[magnets]

Originally Posted by Cory

Change "woman" to "man" and you've just described Jerry Sandusky. Highly respected, nobody suspected a thing, until they found out he was a serial child molester.

Obviously I'm not trying to say the woman in your story was a likely child molester, but it certainly does happen.

I understand completely what you are saying, and I think it is very important to be careful and have common sense when you're dealing with people to avoid bad situations.

It's just my opinion that it's not worth it to live your life in fear of something like this happening. Sure, you should be careful and make smart decisions, but I don't believe we need people making decisions for us about who we should and shouldn't be friends with.


If you start thinking like this, you have to consider everybody you know from the FIRST program as being a potential threat. People who you've known for the past ten years of your life that you care about are a threat. This is a dangerous line of thinking, and it leads to a really sad and boring team, and eventually life. There are people on my team who I trust.

Here's a quick story-
A student on my team who is a big FIRST enthusiast was having a hard time fitting in, both on CD and on the team. A very well respected mentor reached out to him over private messages on Chief Delphi, and helped show him how he needed to behave. After the conversation, the student became a much better team member, and I'm thankful for what that mentor did. If I follow YPP, I am required to report that "incident" to FIRST. I won't, but you get the idea.