On-Line Youth Protection Training

Youth Protection Training for adult leaders has historically consisted of a 90-minute in-person class structured around a videotape. In early 2003 BSA announced the availability of Youth Protection Training as an interactive web-based class that takes about 30 to 45 minutes. Dial-up users have experienced problems, and at this time BSA recommends this online course only for broadband users (e.g., cable modem, DSL, T1-style connection at work, etc.).

BSA policy urges all registered adult leaders who work with scouts to take Youth Protection Training every two years. Hopefully, the availability of this class on the web will make it easier for all such leaders to do this. The in-person training will continue to be offered by the district in the spring and the fall.

Here are the steps for broadband users to take the online Youth Protection Training class. (You may want to print these directions before you proceed.)

• Click here. Bookmark the resulting page.

• Read that page and then click "Online Youth Protection Training."

• Read that page and then click "Online Youth Protection Training course." This will take you to the national BSA web site, www.scouting.org. Do not bookmark this national page as your Youth Protection access. You must access the online Youth Protection Training system via a Council web site; if you try to go straight to the national YPT page, you'll get an error message. (In order for your completion of this class to be recorded by the Council, you must start from the web site of the Council where you are registered as an adult leader.)

• On the resulting page, fill in the information about yourself so that your completion can be credited:

• The "Name" entry has four boxes, one each for first, middle, last, and suffix in that order. Put the correct information in the correct box. You may leave the Middle Name and/or Suffix boxes blank. If possible, enter your name as it appears on your BSA membership card. (However, this is not essential.)

• One of the fields is "Member number." That number is on your BSA membership card. Entering it helps to ensure that your completion of the course will be recorded in the Council’s records, but it is not essential; you may leave this box empty if you like.

• In the "Unit" dropdown box, select "Troop."

• Leave the "Organization" field blank.

• Click the "Begin" button when you have finished filling out the form.


• In the upper right corner of the resulting screen there is a tab that says either “Audio On” or “Audio Off.” If it says “Audio On,” click that tab to toggle it to “Audio Off.” This will speed things up.

• On each page, read the text, scroll down as necessary, and click any hypertext (colored underlined text) that asks you a question.

• Scroll to the bottom of each page and click the "Next" button to move to the next page. (Don't just click the "Next" button without reading the text; there is a test at the end of the class.)

• Several interactive questions are presented during the class. If you give an incorrect answer, you will receive a message to this effect and the only course navigation button that will be available will be the "Back" button. Click that button and give a different answer.

• At the end of the course there is a test. If you pass the test, you will get a screen that congratulates you and lists three things that you must “download” in order to complete the course. You may print these documents, save them to disk, or simply open them. At the bottom of that page, click “Click here” to report your training to our local council.

Once you complete the above steps, you should receive a completion certificate via e-mail within a day or two. It will be a .pdf file with a color image that looks a lot like the cards that are issued for the in-person Youth Protection classes. You may print the certificate and/or save the file to disk. IMPORTANT: if you take the online course and the test via broadband, and you see a notice on the screen that you completed everything successfully, but you don't receive this certificate within two business days after completing the class, please report this to Annette Donfor at NCAC (adonfor@boyscouts-ncac.org) and ask her to send you a completion certificate.

Even though this online system will record your successful completion of the class in the Council records, this does not get reported back to the troop. Please report your successful completion of online Youth Protection Training to Kevin Doyle (doyle@syrres.com) so that he can record it in your Troopmaster database record. One convenient way to do this might be to forward to Kevin the e-mail message that transmits your completion certificate to you.

-Tim Kelly
Committee Chair

kelly99@verizon.net