Thanks for Your Continued Efforts to Safeguard Youth

Since becoming the Director of Environmental Health & Safety for Scouting America, I have seen so many wins for the movement and our Scouts. We held a great Safety Conference at the Philmont Training Center in the second week of September that was kicked off by Roger Krone, Chief Scout Executive, and Frank Tsuru, Chairman of the National Safeguarding Youth Committee as well as numerous members of the SAFEScouting Committee. That conference was attended by more than 70 Scouters with passions and professional experience in safety, and the group shared the lessons they had learned and the challenges they encountered.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to safeguarding the youth in this program. We finished the year with continued improvement in our safety performance, and everyone in the movement has had a part in this success, but we have more to do.

The EHS team is looking forward to 2026, and we would like to share some of our aims for the year. The primary focus will be on helping to ensure a safe camp season for council-run camps, high adventure bases and Jamboree. Our focus in the second half of the year will be on modernizing the tools we use to keep Scouts safe, such as the Guide to Safe Scouting and incident reporting processes and tools.

When I review our incident trends from 2025, here are the big things I would tell anyone who is taking our kids on an adventure:

• Supervision is not just watching the exits. This means adult supervision needs to be positioned throughout the activity area so those adults can help prevent incidents wherever they may occur.
• Mental Emotional and Social Health (MESH) will continue to be a space where we can really help our participants. The reality is that MESH will continue to be a place that our movement can help America, just like it has done by preparing youth with knowledge in first aid, water safety, and fire-arm safety.
• Fitness – working to ensure that everyone going on an adventure is physically and emotionally fit for the specific adventure can only help that adventure be better.

Once again, thank you for all your efforts keeping yourselves and the Scouts safe. Let’s keep getting better and having awesome adventures!

Yours in Scouting,

Tree Kiester, CSP

Director of Environmental Health & Safety