Youth Program Registration Guide

Definitions

• Youth Program: A program, event, or activity with a specific stated purpose and goal. The program is the big picture information about the purpose, program type, and leadership information that is likely to remain the same through multiple cycles of programming.
• Program Session: A session is a unique offering or iteration of a specific youth program. Within sessions, you list the specific dates/occurrences, locations, and staff for each session of the youth program.
• Supervised Employee: Program staff/volunteers who will never supervisor, chaperone, or provide director care for youth and will never have unsupervised access to youth.
  • Examples include guest lecturers, volunteers who are always supervised by authorized employees, or others with no potential to be alone with youth.
  • A supervised employee must:
    • Be at least 16 years old
    • Complete USU’s basic youth protection training (annually)
    • Sign the youth program code of conduct (annually)
  • Authorized Employee: Program staff/volunteers who will perform roles involving interaction with youth; will supervise, chaperone, and/or provide direct care for youth; or will have unsupervised access to youth. Every program must have at least one authorized adult for each session, although the program director can serve as that authorized adult.
    • An authorized employee must:
      • Be at least 21 years old
      • Have successfully passed a criminal background check
      • Complete the basic youth protection and Boundary Training for Educators trainings (annually)
      • Sign the youth program code of conduct (annually)
    • Program Director: Directs and oversees the youth program and is ultimately responsible for all program and session activities. The program director is directly responsible for ensuring the program, session, and associated staff are compliant with USU policy.
      • A program director must:
        • Be a USU employee
        • Be an authorized employee
        • Complete the “Hiring Staff Who Work with Minors” training (annually)
        • Sign the youth program code of conduct (annually)
      • Session Director: Directs and overseen a specific session of a youth program and is responsible for all the session activities. Must meet the same requirements as a program director.

Registration:

Program Directors must register their programs/sessions.  The first step is to create an account in USU’s Protection of Minors compliance software (USU POM ).  Once you have created your account, logging in will take you to your dashboard.

Select the “Youth Program Registration Form” which will take you to the following page:

Select the program type and then indicate whether or not your program is a research program subject to Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval.

Hit “Next” and you will see the page where you select your specific youth program.

Generally, the preferred option would be to select the youth program related to your USU college/division.  However, most USU colleges/divisions do not have a designated youth program coordinator, so if none of these options fits your youth program, please contact Risk Management and we’ll create a youth program specific to you.

Because of how USU is structured, many time, programs and sessions are really the same thing.

Hit “Next” and you’ll get to details for creating a new session.

The session details section will walk you through the questions we ask for every youth program.  Your answers to some questions may prompt further questions.  The questions are:

• Session Name
• Session Date and Time
  • You will have the option to select single day, multiple days, or recurrences.
• Estimated Number of Minor Participants:
  • This is broken down by age ground and provides a recommended supervision ratio:
    • Ages 5 and Under – 6:1
    • Ages 6-8 – 8:1
    • Ages 9-14 – 10:1
    • Ages 15-17 – 12:1
  • Provide a brief description of the youth program.
  • Please list any session goals.
  • Session Location: Select all that apply
    • On-Campus
      • If you select On-Campus, you will be asked which campus and if the session includes an overnight stay.
    • Off-Campus
      • If you select Off-Campus, you will be asked if the session includes an overnight stay.
    • Online
  • Will minors be transported during this session?
  • Are recreational events involving physical activity including in this session?
  • Will this session involve the use of labs, shops, or makerspaces? Particularly activities that involve power tools, knives, scissors, scalpels, or exposure to hazardous materials?
  • Is all session time scheduled (minimal or no unsupervised time)?
  • Please describe your supervision plan, including supervision during session activities, breaks (including restroom breaks), and free time.
  • Please describe how you will communicate with participants and parents/guardians before and during the session.
  • Please describe the session’s medication and medical response protocols.
  • Please select the person who will be responsible for reporting incidents.
  • Please upload copies of parental consent forms, contracts, waivers, or any other documents that would be helpful
  • Please describe the specific duties of the authorized employees.
  • Will there be supervised employees involved in this session?
    • If yes, please describe the specific duties of the supervised employees

Once you’re answered all of the questions, you’ll be ready to move on to adding your staff.

First, add program directors.  By default, your name will be there as the program director however, if you have co-directors, you can add them here.

If you have a business services contact that works with you on the business and financial processes involved with your session, you can add them here.  This is useful if your business services people are doing background checks on your employees rather than going directly through Human Resources.

You will need to add a session director, but it is acceptable for you, as the program director, to be the session director if your session doesn’t need its own director.

Session contacts are people who could be contacted, if necessary, who will have information about the program/session if for some reason you as the program director are unavailable.  By default, the program director is assigned as a session contact.

Finally, you’ll add your authorized and/or supervised employees.  As mentioned previously, every program session requires at least one authorized employee, but that employee can be the program director.

If your staff have already created their accounts and logged into the system, you can just select “Add a New Person” and search for their name.  If they are not currently in the system, you can search for them using their A-number.

If you search using their A-number, that staff member will receive and email with instructions on how to log into the system once you have submitted your session for review.

Once you have finished adding all of your staff, you’ll click “Next” to move on to the final review.

While the final review will summarize the details of your session at the top of the form, the key information about compliance will be in the staff section at the bottom.  This will give you a list of all of your staff on their current compliance status with all of the requirements.

As you can see in the example, Jarrod as the authorized employee has passed the background check, completed all of the trainings, and signed the code of conduct.  Kate, however, is still missing her training and signing the code of conduct.

The system keeps track of everyone, so it will notify youth program staff of when compliance requirements are due to expire and will begin sending out notifications.  If you are adding staff that have previously worked with your program or with another registered youth program, it will automatically add that to your dashboard.  This allows you to see at a glance if your program/staff are in compliance.  Staff are not required to be compliant in order for you to submit the program (they will need to be compliant to actually participate in the program, however).

If everything looks correct, click the “Submit Session” button and your session will be sent to Risk Management for review.