[FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: August 15, 2014

[EricH]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...idays-08152014

Frank is on vacation this week. You may be able to tell this from the artistic additions some folks made to the traditional graphic above while he was otherwise occupied.

Before he left, he asked Lee Doucette, Youth Protection Program Manager here at FIRST, to answer a question he received.

This question is from Nate Laverdure, a mentor from FRC Team 2363, Triple Helix, from Newport News, Virginia, USA:

Question

Good afternoon Frank,
Who wrote the YPP?

Thank you!

Nate Laverdure

Answer

Thank you, Nate Laverdure, for mentoring a FIRST team and for sending a great question.

The newly expanded Youth Protection Program began with the Strategic Plan developed in 2012. Youth Protection is one of the key Strategic Initiatives in the 5 year plan.

In February 2013 a Youth Protection Program Development Committee was formed.

The Committee consisted of: two FIRST Vice Presidents, three Department Managers, Legal Counsel, a Regional Director, an FLL and FTC Partner and a FIRST Robotics Coach.

Surveys were conducted for coaches, mentors, partners, regional directors and staff. Those results gave us good information about what the FIRST community was thinking, feeling and doing about this important topic. We took a lot of best practices from the field to incorporate into the Guidelines.

The Committee utilized the Center for Disease Control’s publication “Preventing Child Sexual Abuse Within Youth-Serving Organizations: Getting Started on Policies and Procedures” as a guide. Members of the Committee also consulted with other youth serving organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4H, Boys and Girls Clubs, Little League, Catholic Church, and Big Brother, Big Sisters, who were generous with their time and information.

The Committee then spent hours discussing how to apply the concepts and guidelines uniformly, across FIRST’s 4 programs. Some sections were left deliberately vague to allow for the wide range of activities and team structures and some sections are more detailed in terms of situations that are unique to the FIRST experience.

A pilot was launched in the summer of 2013 with 200+ participants who reviewed the Youth Protection Guide and tested the screening process.

Additional feedback was collected from a focus group made up of coaches and mentors who met several times in Manchester to review and discuss the Youth Protection Guidelines drafts.

Who wrote the Youth Protection Guidelines? A couple of thousand individuals contributed to the final product. A Team Effort!

COMING SOON!

Training for teams: Team Safety Meeting Video – September 2014

Next we will be working on a set of focused training modules on different topics that will be linked to a Learning Management System. These modules will allow coaches, mentors, and event volunteers to receive FIRST certification in Youth Protection training.

We are also working on a training guide for Youth Mentors.

BE SURE TO WATCH!

Keeping Kids Safe – FIRST Youth Protection Behavioral Boundaries

Not going to spoil the fun of looking up the aforementioned header for all you guys--happy laughing your heads off...

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Can somebody check on Hallry and make sure he's OK? Missing an FRC Blog post is worrisome.

[cgmv123]

I'm surprised Frank chose that question when there are plenty of more pressing questions about the Youth Protection Program.

Spoiler for Blog header:

[PayneTrain]

[quote=cgmv123;1396607]I'm surprised Frank chose that question when there are plenty of more pressing questions about the Youth Protection Program.

Either a) no one submitted a question to be answered by him that mirrors a concern in that thread or b) people deflect harder questions all the time and the director for FRC is not immune to that fact.

Not saying b is likely or a bad thing, but it's to be expected. There are likely plenty of questions asked by the community he can't/won't answer.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Either a) no one submitted a question to be answered by him that mirrors a concern in that thread or b) people deflect harder questions all the time and the director for FRC is not immune to that fact.

Not saying b is likely or a bad thing, but it's to be expected. There are likely plenty of questions asked by the community he can't/won't answer.

So the best they could do is a history lesson?

Frank's made it clear plenty of times that he doesn't need Chief Delphi posts to be turned into Frank Answers Fridays questions for him to respond to them.

Until the administrative manual comes out, the Youth Protection Program is the biggest issue going into the new FRC season. FIRST needs to prevent it from becoming a bigger problem than it already is.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

So the best they could do is a history lesson?

Frank's made it clear plenty of times that he doesn't need Chief Delphi posts to be turned into Frank Answers Fridays questions for him to respond to them.

Until the administrative manual comes out, the Youth Protection Program is the biggest issue going into the new FRC season. FIRST needs to prevent it from becoming a bigger problem than it already is.

Except odds are (and from what I've seen), the YPP isn't really a "problem". Remember that CD is the oftentimes a loud minority.

I'm just guessing, but I'm pretty sure a vast majority of FRC teams are school-based where the lead mentor (for TIMS purposes) is a teacher/administrator, in which the YPP is nothing they aren't used to.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

Except odds are (and from what I've seen), the YPP isn't really a "problem". Remember that CD is the oftentimes a loud minority.

I'm just guessing, but I'm pretty sure a vast majority of FRC teams are school-based where the lead mentor (for TIMS purposes) is a teacher/administrator, in which the YPP is nothing they aren't used to.

It's definitely a problem that they are selling everyone's information to advertising agencies, unless you opt out.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Cory

It's definitely a problem that they are selling everyone's information to advertising agencies, unless you opt out.

where have you heard this?

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

where have you heard this?

Start here and read until the ensuing conversation devolves, as usual.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

where have you heard this?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...30#post1391630

[magnets]

At this point, I'm not too upset by the idea of background checks, but it seems a little sketchy that the required background checking service sells my information to other people by default...

[Foster]

I thought Nate asked a good question, it was open ended, and the answer was pretty decent. We learned that it was a pretty good cross section of FIRST. It was not driven by lawyers. They looked at other groups and used a pretty good benchmark to start their policy from. So we gathered lots of information, and we have a new person, Lee Doucette, Youth Protection Program Manager, to thank about adding to the FIRST transparency that Frank has started. So all in all it was a good FAF! (Bonus for the markup on the header)

In the doc there is this statement:

The Committee utilized the Center for Disease Control’s publication “Preventing Child Sexual Abuse Within Youth-Serving Organizations: Getting Started on Policies and Procedures” as a guide. Members of the Committee also consulted with other youth serving organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4H, Boys and Girls Clubs, Little League, Catholic Church, and Big Brother, Big Sisters, who were generous with their time and information.

So someone needs to post the questions "Based on the organizations you used for your benchmarks why is the data subject to an opt-in or opt-out policy? Why is the default "opt-in"? Can you explain the process, policies and procedures that will be followed to keep our mentor data secure. "

Ok, so that's 3 questions.