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Everything you need to know about virtual summer camps for Cub Scouts and Scouts

This summer, councils from coast to coast are offering virtual camps, delivering many of the best parts of summer camp right to your home.

Read on »

To Our Scouting Family and Friends,

As the County of Orange continues to ease some of the COVID-19 restrictions, we stand vigilant to ensure the safety of our members and staff. With each new guideline from the State and County health departments, we are adjusting our program delivery and council operations to ensure a safe environment. We hope that as Scouting moves to get back to a new normal, we are able make sure our families and leaders feel comfortable with the steps we have taken.

The council is continually monitoring the buzz around the increased coronavirus cases. Future updates will address changes if needed.

To help get families and units reactivated, the council has published the first three Return to Scouting Checklists that help our members get back into Scouting.

Cub Scout Families          Scout BSA Families          Unit Leaders

Units are asked to continue using facemasks and enforce physical distancing in unit meetings and activities. Unit leaders please review and follow CDC guidelines as you develop your program this summer.

During COVID-19 protocols Eagle Applications can be turned in and reviewed using a virtual-book-check procedure.  

Please contact Mrs. Henry at christyhhenry@hotmail.com to get instructions and schedule your virtual book-check.

We will return to in-person practices when OCBSA provides guidance to do so.

• Follow all youth protection policies.
  • All youth protection policies still apply in an online environment. Ensure you always have two-deep leadership for online activities and meetings. Our ban on one-on-one contact between an adult leader and youth applies to all interactions ­– whether in person, online, through a web conference, over the phone, via text, or in any other form.
  • All aspects of the Scouting program are open to observation by parents, and the BSA suggests parents take part in online activities and meetings.
• Use business-oriented conference platforms that include good safety and privacy features instead of platforms with other primary purposes (such as gaming).
  • Review the terms of service, safety and privacy features, and data collection policies of any platform you use, and review the BSA Digital Privacy and Social Media Guidelines linked below.
• Regularly review and implement the latest security features of your chosen platform to avoid unauthorized visitors or other security issues in your meetings.
  • Just as you put in place plans for the physical security of your meeting place, here are some tips to consider as you get started developing your own strategy to manage online security:
    • Use unique meeting identification numbers for each session.
    • Utilize password features for all meetings.
    • Do not publish meeting invitations via public forums and remind attendees not to pass along invitations.
    • Use “waiting room” features to manage letting individuals into your meetings.
    • Disable features that you will not need, such as screen-sharing by non-hosts, private chats, and whiteboards.
• Do not record online activities/meetings that include youth participants.
• Recording of online activities that only involve adults is subject to local council legal review and approval. Check with your local council for guidance.
  • Call recording is subject to various legal requirements under U.S. law and the laws of individual states, some of which require all parties to a call consent to recording.
• Safeguard personal information.
  • If you collect a person’s personal information online—for example, through web forms used to register people for online meetings—then you should post a notice or disclosure at the point of collection describing how you will use the information. The notice should be conspicuous and written in plain English.
  • Meeting organizers must keep such information private and not share a youth’s personal information with anyone except that youth’s parent or guardian or the unit leader responsible for tracking advancements. For example, a merit badge counselor should not publicly post or otherwise show a roster with personal information of Scouts the counselor has worked with.
• Collecting personal information from youth under 13 is not recommended.
  • Do not collect personal information directly from youth under 13 years of age due to the parental notice and consent requirements under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”).  You should collect any data needed from the parent or legal guardian only.

    BSA Youth Protection Mission Statement

    True youth protection can be achieved only through the focused commitment of everyone in Scouting. It is the mission of Youth Protection volunteers and professionals to work within the Boy Scouts of America to maintain a culture of Youth Protection awareness and safety at the national, regional, area, council, district, and unit levels.