Blacklists for youth-serving nonprofits

In the wake of the massive judgment against the Boy Scouts of America for negligence in a child abuse case, Youth today has posted a fascinating article looking at the viability of blacklists, listings of banned volunteers, for nonprofits serving young people. Such lists can be a way of mitigating problems with the typical criminal records and sex abuse registry checks that are now common practice at nonprofits.

The article does a nice job of balancing the pros and cons of a nonprofit creating such a list, examining the logistical, legal, and ethical issues that creating such lists entails.

The full article can be found here:
http://www.youthtoday.org/publication/article.cfm?article_id=3960

What's increasingly clear is that the BSA ruling really has snapped the nonprofit world to attention on the issue of child safety and staff/volunteer screening. It will be interesting to see if this results in additional changes to laws or mechanisms for screening applicants down the road.