As we begin our new Rotary year, we have officially launched our new Youth Protection Policy, to help better protect youth we cherish, your Rotary club, and you. It has been an initiative two years in the making and has now arrived. Outside of Youth Exchange, Rotary 5960 has not had guidelines and policies in place for working with you; yesterday that changed.

As of July 1, 2010, the District 5960 Youth Protection Policy has gone into effect. We appreciate your support in embracing this new policy and working to ensure that 100% of the District 5960 Rotary Clubs are in full compliance by January 1, 2011. Development of this policy was based on many resources, such as Rotary District 6250’s current Youth Protection Policy (Western WI & South East MN), our District Youth Exchange Policy, many organizations’ experience with Youth programs, in addition to the Boy Scouts of America Youth Protection policies.

As with any new policy, there will be some people who will resist change. Please work with those individuals to ensure that they know these policies are in place to better safeguard the youth with whom we work in all programs, limit the potential of putting our volunteers into bad situations, and give guidance to our volunteers as they come across difficult situations.

All materials and the online training/ background check portal, are now available on the District 5960 YP website http://yp.nstpmorotary.org

If you have questions in regards to the policy, those can be directed to our District Youth Protection Officer Janet Newberg at janetNewberg@comcast.net or our District Youth Protection Taskforce Chair April Livers, april@nstpmorotary.org.

Attachments:

Policy and Procedures

Youth Protection Background Check Policy

Frequently Asked Questions

Youth Protection Link

If you have “significant youth interaction” in a Rotary Program, mainly STRIVE mentors, but also if you plan on transporting Youth Exchange students in a one-on-one situation, you not only need to take the Youth Protection training (can take online too, if you weren’t at the meeting), but you also need to fill out the application and background check form on-line on the link below.

http://yp.nstpmorotary.org

The training and background check is good for 3 years before you need to re-up.