Sign it here. That’s it.

What you are agreeing to

I am the parent or legal guardian of the young person named above, and I agree to their taking part in the Defining Narratives Institute, a program of We The Revolt, Inc.

I understand this is a non-clinical education and mentoring program. It is not therapy and no one on staff is treating them. If they need clinical care, the program will refer them to a licensed provider and tell me.

I understand that if they tell staff they are being hurt, that someone else is being hurt, or that they intend to harm themselves or another person, Florida law requires staff to act on it. That goes to on-call staff and, where the law requires, to the Florida Abuse Hotline or emergency services. It is not treated as a probation violation report.

I understand there is no cost to me, and that I can withdraw this consent at any time by calling [email protected].

What you are agreeing to

I am going to show up. If I cannot make a session, I will say so beforehand instead of disappearing.

I will do the work, the sessions, the reflection questions, and the service projects, because the hours only count if the work is real.

I will keep what other people say in the room, in the room.

I understand my attendance and my hours go back to whoever referred me, and that what I write in my reflection work does not.

What you are agreeing to

I give We The Revolt, Inc. permission to use photographs and video taken during program activities in program materials, reports to funders, and on its own websites and social accounts, within the limits I selected above.

No image will be sold, and no image will be captioned in a way that identifies them as justice-involved.

I understand I can withdraw this permission at any time by calling [email protected], and that images already printed cannot be recalled.

What you are agreeing to

I authorize program staff to transport the young person named above to and from approved service projects and program activities.

I understand staff who transport youth hold a valid license and have completed Level 2 background screening, and that I am told in advance where they are going and when they will be back.

What you are agreeing to

I agree to complete Level 2 (state and FBI) background screening before I am placed with a young man, and I consent to that screening.

I understand I am a mandatory reporter under Florida law, and that anything a young person tells me about being hurt goes to on-call staff the same day.

I will keep contact with youth inside program channels and program time. I will not give a participant money, transport them alone without authorization, or meet them privately off-site.

I understand that showing up unpredictably is worse than not showing up at all, and that if I need to step back I will say so rather than fading out.

What you are agreeing to

I am eighteen or over and I am enrolling myself in the Defining Narratives Institute, a program of We The Revolt, Inc.

I understand this is a non-clinical education and mentoring program. It is not therapy. If I need clinical care, staff will connect me with a licensed provider.

I understand that if I tell staff a child is being hurt, or that I intend to harm myself or someone else, Florida law requires staff to act on it.

I will show up, do the work, and keep what other people say in the room, in the room.

Nothing about my participation is reported to anyone unless I ask for it in writing, no officer, no court, nobody.

What you are agreeing to

We agree to work together on the terms described above, and to put anything that changes in writing before it takes effect.

No youth information is shared with a partner organization without the youth and guardian consenting to that specific sharing.

Either side can end this with written notice, and doing so does not affect youth already placed.

What you are agreeing to

WHAT THIS ORGANIZATION IS.

Defining Narratives is a program of We The Revolt, Inc., and it is a Christian organization. That is not a line in a mission statement that nobody reads. It is the reason the work exists, it is what the people who run it believe, and it is what they are drawing on when they sit down across from a young man who has been told his whole life what he is going to become.

We believe every person is made in the image of God, that nobody is the worst thing they have done, and that a life can be rewritten. We believe that is true of a seventeen year old on probation and equally true of the adult sitting opposite him. That belief is why we do not run this program as a correction and why we do not treat a young person as a case.

WHAT THIS DOES NOT MEAN FOR THE YOUNG PEOPLE WE SERVE.

No young person and no family is ever asked what they believe. They are not asked to pray, not asked to attend anything, not asked to agree with us, and nothing about what they believe or do not believe changes one thing about what they receive here. A young man who wants no part of the faith behind this gets exactly the same program, the same hours, the same mentor and the same certificate as one who shares it. If anybody ever tells you otherwise, that person is wrong and we want to know about it.

What is asked in this document is asked of volunteers, and of volunteers only. It is a condition of doing this work. It is not a condition of receiving help, and it never will be.

WHAT WE ARE ASKING OF YOU.

You can't be working with kids and then living a whole other lifestyle where these kids are reflecting negative stuff you've got going on. That is the founder's sentence and it is the honest centre of this document, so it is written here in his words rather than tidied into policy language.

What it means in practice is this. These young men are watching you. Not the version of you in the room on a Tuesday, the whole of you, the parts you think are private, the things they hear about from somebody who knows you. They are unusually good at spotting the gap between what an adult says and what an adult does, because most of them have been taught to look for it. When they find that gap in you, the damage is not that you have been caught. The damage is that you have confirmed what they already suspected about every adult who ever made them a promise.

So we are asking you to live consistently with what you are teaching, in private as well as in public. Not perfectly. Nobody here is perfect, and a program built by people who have needed forgiveness is not going to pretend otherwise. Consistently: the same person on a Saturday night as on a Tuesday evening, honest about where you are falling short, and not carrying something you are hiding.

Concretely, that means your integrity with money, with the truth, and with other people is not a separate matter from this work, it is the qualification for it. It means what you put on your own social accounts is part of what you are teaching. It means if you are in something you would not want a young man in this program to copy, you deal with it, and until you have, you are honest with us rather than in the room with him.

WHEN IT GOES WRONG.

Nobody is asking you to be finished. If you are struggling with something, the thing we want is a conversation, not a resignation. Come and say so. In almost every case the answer is support and a period away from direct contact rather than the end of your involvement, and we would far rather have that conversation early than find out about it from somebody else.

What ends involvement is not failure. It is hiding it.

WHAT WE OWE YOU IN RETURN.

We will tell you the truth about the young people you are working with and about what this program can and cannot do. We will not put you in a room you have not been prepared for. We will back you when a situation is hard, and we will not leave you carrying something alone that belongs to staff. If we ask you to step back, we will tell you why to your face.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this and I understand what Defining Narratives is. I am willing to serve here on these terms. I will live consistently with what I am asking these young men to live, in private as well as in public, and where I fall short of that I will say so rather than hide it. I understand this is asked of me as a volunteer and is never asked of a young person or a family.

What you are agreeing to

BEING ALONE WITH A YOUNG PERSON.

I will not be alone with a participant behind a closed door, in a vehicle, or anywhere out of sight of another adult. Where a conversation needs to be private, it happens in a room with a window or a door open, in a public space, or with another approved adult within sight and out of earshot. If a situation puts me alone with a young person by accident, I end it and I tell staff the same day rather than deciding on my own that it was fine.

I will not meet a participant off-site outside a scheduled program activity, and I will not arrange to. If a young person asks me to, the answer is no and it goes to staff.

TRANSPORT.

I will not transport a participant alone. Where I am approved to drive, there are two adults or two young people in the vehicle, the trip is one staff know about before it starts, and I take the route between the two places and nowhere else. I hold a valid licence and current insurance and I will tell the program the day either of those stops being true.

I will not put a participant in my vehicle because it is raining, because a ride did not turn up, or because it is easier. I call staff instead. Every serious safeguarding failure in a program like this one has a version of that sentence in it.

PHONES, MESSAGES AND SOCIAL MEDIA.

I will keep contact with a young person inside program channels and program time. If a participant contacts me privately, on any platform, I do not answer it privately: I bring it to staff the same day, and staff decide what happens next.

I will not follow, friend, or direct-message a participant on a personal account, and I will not accept a request from one. I will not post a photograph of a participant, tag one, name one, or write about one anywhere, including in a private group and including without a name.

I understand that a message I send at eleven at night is a different message from the same words at four in the afternoon, and that a private channel between an adult and a young person is the thing every safeguarding review finds first.

MONEY AND GIFTS.

I will not give a participant money, lend them money, buy them anything of value, or take anything from them. If a young person has a real need, I raise it with staff and the program meets it, so that help comes from the program and not from a private arrangement with me.

I will not use my place here to sell anything, to recruit for anything, or to pursue anything of my own, including a business, a campaign or a cause.

PHYSICAL CONTACT.

A handshake, a hand on a shoulder, a hug a young man initiates in front of other people. That is the whole list. I will never discipline a participant physically, restrain one except where somebody is in immediate danger, or raise my hands to one under any circumstance.

I will not comment on a participant's body, and I will not be alone with one in a bathroom, a changing area or a bedroom.

WHAT IS SAID IN THE ROOM.

I will keep what a participant says in the room, in the room. I will not repeat it to another participant, to my family, to my church, or to anybody outside the program, and I will not discuss one participant with another.

There is one exception and it is the next section.

REPORTING. FLORIDA LAW, AND THIS IS THE PART TO READ TWICE.

Under section 39.201 of the Florida Statutes every person in this state is a mandatory reporter. Not only teachers, not only staff, everybody. If I know or suspect that a child has been abused, abandoned or neglected, I am personally required by law to report it to the Florida Abuse Hotline on 1-800-96-ABUSE, and that duty is mine and cannot be delegated to somebody else in this program.

So: I call the hotline, and I tell on-call staff the same day so the program can support both the young person and me. Telling staff does not discharge my legal duty and staff telling me they will handle it does not either.

If a participant tells me they intend to harm themselves or another person, I do not leave them alone, I contact on-call staff immediately, and where somebody is in immediate danger I call 911 first and staff second.

WHEN A YOUNG PERSON DISCLOSES SOMETHING.

I will not promise a young person that I will keep what they are about to say to myself. If they ask me to promise, I tell them before they start that there are some things I have to pass on, and that I will tell them what I am passing on and to whom.

I will listen and I will not interrogate. I will not ask leading questions, will not press for detail, and will not try to establish whether it is true, because that is an investigator's job and doing it badly can destroy a case that would otherwise have protected a child.

I will not react with shock, will not promise an outcome I cannot deliver, and will not confront anybody the young person has named. I will write down what was said in their words rather than mine, as soon as I can, and hand that to staff.

WHAT ENDS SOMEBODY'S INVOLVEMENT THE SAME DAY.

Being alone with a participant off-site. Transporting one alone. A private message thread with one. Giving or taking money. Any physical discipline or any physical contact of a sexual nature. Being under the influence of alcohol or a drug in the presence of a participant. Failing to pass on a disclosure. Any of these ends my involvement immediately, and anything that puts a young person at risk goes to the Florida Abuse Hotline and to law enforcement as well as to the program.

I understand that removal is not a punishment being weighed against my intentions. It is what a program does when a young person's safety is the thing being protected.

SHOWING UP.

I understand that turning up unpredictably does more damage than never turning up at all, because most of these young men have already had a run of adults who were there and then were not. If I need to step back, I will say so rather than fading out.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this code of conduct, I understand it, and I agree to work to it. I understand that I am a mandatory reporter under Florida law, that this duty is mine personally, and that breaking any part of this ends my involvement with Defining Narratives.

What you are agreeing to

WHAT THIS DOCUMENT IS.

This is not permission for Defining Narratives to run a background check about me. The program does not run them, cannot run them, and is not going to start. It does not order a check about me, it is not enrolled as an organization that receives criminal history records, and it never receives my criminal history. That is deliberate and it is in my interest as much as theirs: whatever is on my record stays between me and the agency that looked at it.

What this is: I confirm I have gone through, or will go through, somebody else's screening. I give the program permission to check that with them. And I agree to tell the program if my situation changes.

ONE. THE SCREENING I HOLD OR WILL HOLD.

I confirm that I have completed, or will complete before I am placed with anybody, the volunteer screening of an agency that works with young people. That is normally the juvenile justice or juvenile probation agency that supervises the young people I will be around, and going through their own volunteer process is the expected route.

Where there is no such route where I am, I understand I may obtain a screening myself and pay for it myself, and that the program does not pay it and does not reimburse it. Where I already hold a current screening through my employer or another organisation that works with young people, I may evidence that instead rather than being screened twice in the same year.

The screening is issued to me and belongs to me. It is not held by Defining Narratives, it is not obtained on my behalf, and it is not something this program can arrange, hurry or waive.

TWO. I AUTHORIZE THE PROGRAM TO VERIFY IT WITH THE AGENCY.

I authorize Defining Narratives to contact the agency that screened me, name me, and ask them to confirm that I am cleared to volunteer, whether that clearance is current, and what it permits. I authorize that agency to answer.

This is the part that matters and I understand why it is being asked for. Anything I send the program myself arrived through me and cannot be checked on its own. Before I am placed alone with a young person, somebody at the program contacts the agency independently and confirms it, and they write down who they spoke to and when. Without this permission they would be discussing my screening with a third party without my knowledge, which is not something this program is willing to do.

I authorize this for as long as I volunteer here and for repeat confirmations on a regular basis, normally once a year, as set out below.

What the program asks and what it may be told is limited to whether I am cleared, whether it is current, and what it covers. It does not extend to my criminal history, and if an agency were to volunteer any of that, the program does not record it.

THREE. I WILL TELL THE PROGRAM IF MY STATUS CHANGES.

I agree to tell Defining Narratives promptly, and in any case within seven days, if my clearance is revoked, suspended, allowed to lapse, or comes under review, or if I am told by any agency that I may no longer volunteer with young people, or if I am arrested or charged with an offence involving a child, violence, or a sexual offence.

The program is being straight with me about why this is asked. Because Defining Narratives does not request the screening, it is not on any list that would be told. If an agency revokes my clearance tomorrow, the only two people who know are that agency and me. The program will find out when it next confirms with the agency, which may be months away. Between now and then, this clause is the whole of the protection, and the young people in this program are what it protects.

I understand telling the program is not the same as being removed. Where something is under review, the ordinary outcome is that I pause until it is resolved rather than that my involvement ends, and that pause is not a disciplinary matter.

HOW IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS.

The program tells me which agency screens volunteers where I will be working, where to go, what to ask for, what to bring back and roughly how long it takes. I go in person. I give my name exactly as it appears on my identification, including any other name I have used, because a mismatch is the usual reason one of these has to be done twice.

I understand the program writes down what it believes the process to be and that agency procedures change, so I should ring the agency before making the trip, and tell the program if anything they told me turns out to be wrong so it can be corrected for the next person.

WHO PAYS.

Where the agency screens its own volunteers, the agency pays and there is nothing for me to pay. Where there is no agency route and I obtain my own, I pay for it. Defining Narratives does not pay it and does not reimburse it. If that is a real obstacle for me, I understand I can say so and have that conversation rather than going quiet.

WHAT I SEND BACK, AND THE ONE THING I MUST NOT SEND.

I send the program the confirmation that I am cleared to volunteer: the letter, the card, the certificate or the email, and the reference number if there is one. I understand a member of staff checks it and then confirms it with the agency, and that both happen before I am placed with anybody.

I will not send the program any document containing my criminal history, a list of charges, or a copy of my record. The program does not want it, is not allowed to hold it, and will delete it rather than read it if it arrives. Anything I do send is stored where only staff can reach it, every time it is opened is logged, and it is destroyed once the confirmation with the agency makes it unnecessary.

WHAT DEFINING NARRATIVES KEEPS.

That I hold a screening, which body issued it, in what jurisdiction, by which route, what it permits, how the program checked it, who here checked it and when, who at the agency confirmed it and by what means, and when it runs out or that nobody established an expiry.

My criminal history is never requested, never received and never stored. There is no offence, no charge, no disposition and no code anywhere in this program's records about me, and there is nowhere in the system for one to go.

IF I AM NOT CLEARED.

If the agency does not clear me, the program records that I was not cleared and nothing else. The reason is not written down here, because the program is not told it and does not ask. The record says the single fixed sentence "Not cleared by the issuing agency" and nothing more.

That decision is the agency's and not a judgment anybody at Defining Narratives has made about me. I am entitled to obtain my own criminal history and to challenge anything in it that is wrong, out of date, or belongs to somebody else. If it is corrected and the agency clears me, I can come back and the program will start again, and my earlier application is not held against me.

WHAT THE SCREENING COVERS.

I understand a clearance is not a general licence and that some clearances permit being inside a facility with agency staff present without permitting one-to-one contact with a young person elsewhere. I agree to ask the agency what mine covers and to tell the program the answer, and I understand the program will only place me within what it covers.

HOW LONG IT LASTS, AND WHY I WILL BE ASKED AGAIN.

A clearance runs for as long as the issuing agency says it does, and agencies differ. The program records the expiry date if there is one and warns me at ninety, sixty and thirty days before it rather than letting it lapse on me quietly. Where nobody has established an expiry, the program records that it does not know rather than assuming.

Separately from any expiry, the program confirms with the agency roughly once a year that I am still cleared. That is not distrust and it is not about me. It is because the program is not notified of changes and a confirmation made a year ago is a fact about a year ago. Where that confirmation lapses, I come off the list of people who can be placed until somebody has made the call, and I understand that is a gap in what the program knows rather than a finding about me.

Once a clearance has lapsed I cannot be with a young person until the agency has cleared me again.

WITHDRAWING THIS.

I can withdraw this at any time by emailing [email protected], including the permission to verify with the agency. Withdrawing the permission to verify ends my ability to be placed with a young person, because the program cannot stand behind a screening it is not allowed to check, and it ends my application rather than counting against me. I can apply again later. My screening is mine and withdrawing from this program does not affect it.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this. I understand that Defining Narratives does not run background checks and never receives my record. I confirm the screening I hold or will hold, I authorize the program to verify it with the agency that issued it and to do so again on a regular basis, and I agree to tell the program if my status changes. The name and details I have given are my own and are correct.

What you are agreeing to

WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO LEARN, WHETHER YOU MEAN TO OR NOT.

Sitting with a young man for twenty three weeks means finding things out. Not only what he chooses to tell you: that he is on probation at all, what the charge was, which school he is no longer at, who is raising him and who is not, what his mother is dealing with, what a caseworker wrote about him. Some of it arrives in a sentence somebody says in front of you rather than in anything you were handed.

All of it is confidential. Not the interesting parts, all of it, including the fact that a named person is in this program at all. That last one is the piece people give away without noticing, and it is the piece that can cost a young man a job, a place at a school, or a relationship with a family that did not know.

THE RULE.

I will not repeat what I learn here to anybody outside the program. Not to my family, not to my church, not to another volunteer who is not working with that young person, not to another participant, and not to an employer, a landlord, an officer or a school unless the program has told me in writing that a specific consent covers it.

I will not write about a participant anywhere, including in a private group, a prayer list, a sermon illustration, a fundraising post, or a message to somebody who already knows him. Changing the name does not make it a different person to anybody who was there.

I will not photograph, record or screenshot a participant, his work, or anything on a screen in this program.

I will look at a record only when I need it to do the thing I am doing, and I will not go looking out of interest. Curiosity about somebody I am not working with is not a reason.

RECORDS THAT CAME FROM A SCHOOL.

Where information reaches this program from a school, it is an education record and it travels under the federal law that governs those, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. In plain terms, that means it was released for one purpose, it stays inside that purpose, it is not passed on again, and it is not used to form a view of somebody in a different setting. I will treat anything that came from a school that way, and I will ask staff rather than assume when I am not sure where something came from.

WHAT CONFIDENTIALITY NEVER COVERS, AND THIS IS NOT THE SMALL PRINT.

Nothing in this document reduces, delays or overrides my duty under section 39.201 of the Florida Statutes to report a child I know or suspect is being abused, abandoned or neglected. That report goes to the Florida Abuse Hotline on 1-800-96-ABUSE, it is mine to make, and no promise of confidence I have given anybody stands in front of it.

The same is true when somebody is in danger. If a participant tells me he intends to harm himself or another person, I contact on-call staff immediately and, where somebody is in immediate danger, emergency services first.

So I will not promise a young man that what he is about to say stays between us. I will tell him, before he starts, that there are some things I have to pass on, and that if I pass something on I will tell him what and to whom.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THIS WHEN I STOP.

This does not end when my involvement does. It carries on afterwards, permanently, for the same reason it existed in the first place: a young man's history does not stop being his because I stopped volunteering. When I leave I will hand back or destroy anything I am holding that names a participant, including anything on my own phone or computer.

WHEN I GET IT WRONG.

If I let something slip, I will tell staff the same day rather than hoping it goes nowhere. Told early, almost every one of these is manageable. Found out later, none of them are, and the damage is to the young man rather than to me.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this and I agree to it. I understand it binds me after my involvement ends, and that it never covers a child being hurt or somebody being in danger.

What you are agreeing to

WHAT CAN ACTUALLY GO WRONG.

Most of what volunteers here do is sit in a room and talk. The rest is not. Service projects involve tools, ladders, lifting, heat and traffic. Some sessions run inside a juvenile facility, which means a secure building, a search on the way in, and rules that are not ours. Cookouts and graduations mean crowds, kitchens and car parks. Getting anywhere means a road.

And there is the part nobody writes down: these are young men with real histories, some of them are angry, and a room can go bad. It is rare and staff are trained for it, and it is not honest to leave it off a list of risks.

I understand that these activities carry a risk of injury, illness, property damage and, in the worst case, death, and that no amount of care by anybody removes that risk entirely. I take part knowing that and I accept it.

WHAT I AM RELEASING.

To the fullest extent the law allows, I release We The Revolt, Inc. and the Defining Narratives Institute, and its officers, directors, employees, volunteers and agents, from claims for injury, illness, loss or damage arising out of my ordinary participation as a volunteer, and I agree not to bring one.

That release covers me and it covers anybody claiming through me, including my family and my estate.

WHAT IT DOES NOT COVER, AND THIS IS THE PART TO READ.

It does not cover gross negligence, recklessness, or anything done deliberately, by anybody. It does not cover a failure to safeguard a young person or an adult, and nothing in this document asks anybody to give up a right to be safe here or to say when they are not. It does not waive anything Florida law does not permit to be waived, and where a court finds part of this unenforceable the rest still stands.

It does not stop me raising a concern, making a report, or going to a regulator, an inspector or law enforcement. If anybody at this program ever tells me that signing this means I cannot, that person is wrong and I should say so to the board.

MEDICAL COST, AND WHAT THIS PROGRAM IS NOT.

I understand that I am a volunteer and not an employee, and that this means the program does not carry workers' compensation cover for me. If I am hurt here, my own health insurance is what pays for treating it. The program will call an ambulance without hesitating and will not weigh the cost, and I am telling it in the emergency and medical document who to ring while it does.

I understand the program carries its own liability insurance, that this document is not a substitute for it, and that I can ask the office what that cover is.

BEING SENSIBLE.

I will not take part in a physical activity I am not fit for, and I will say so rather than pushing through. I will follow the safety instructions staff give me, including the ones I think are unnecessary, and I will use the protective equipment provided on a service project. If I see something unsafe, I will stop and say so rather than working around it.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this, I understand it is a release of legal rights, and I am signing it freely rather than because somebody stood over me. I have had the chance to ask questions about it and to have somebody of my own read it first.

What you are agreeing to

WHO WE RING.

If something happens to me here, the program contacts the person I have named above and, if it cannot reach them, the second person. I will keep those details current and tell the program the day either of them changes, because an emergency contact who moved house two years ago is nobody at all.

WHAT I AM AUTHORIZING.

If I am injured or become unwell and cannot speak for myself, I authorize program staff to call emergency services, to give first aid within what they are trained for, and to pass what I have written here to a paramedic, a doctor or a hospital.

I authorize a licensed medical professional to give me the emergency treatment they judge necessary until my own contact or my own doctor can be reached. I understand staff are not medical professionals, will not diagnose anything, and will not give me medication of any kind including anything ordinary from a first aid kit.

If I carry my own emergency medication, an inhaler, an adrenaline pen, insulin, that stays with me and administering it is mine or a paramedic's, not a member of staff's.

WHAT IT COSTS.

I understand that the cost of an ambulance and of any treatment is mine and not the program's, and that the program does not carry workers' compensation for volunteers. I understand that staff will call an ambulance when they think one is needed and will not weigh what it costs me against that.

WHAT THE PROGRAM DOES WITH THIS.

What I have written here is held encrypted, is read only by staff who need it, and exists for one purpose. It is not used to decide what I am given to do, it is not shared with anybody outside the program except in the emergency it is written for, and it is not a health record. I can ask to see it, correct it, or have the medical part removed at any time.

I understand that leaving the medical boxes blank costs me nothing here and is my own decision.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this, the contact details above are current, and I authorize the program to act on them in an emergency.

What you are agreeing to

WHAT THIS IS ABOUT.

Service projects and graduations get photographed. Those pictures go into grant reports, onto the website, and onto the program's own social accounts, because a funder deciding whether this work is real wants to see it and a young man's family wants a photograph of the day he finished. This is you deciding whether you are in them.

Whatever I choose above is what the program is allowed to do, and choosing the last option changes nothing about what I am asked to do here or how I am treated. Nobody is going to think less of somebody who does not want their face on the internet.

WHAT I AM GIVING PERMISSION FOR.

Within the limit I selected, I give We The Revolt, Inc. permission to record my image, my voice and my likeness during program activities and to use them in program materials, reports to funders and partners, presentations, and on its own websites and social accounts.

I understand I am not paid for this and am not owed anything for it, and that the program owns the photographs it takes.

WHAT THE PROGRAM WILL NOT DO WITH IT.

No image of me will be sold or licensed to a third party for their own advertising. No image of me will be used to endorse a political candidate, a party or a commercial product. Nothing of mine will be captioned in a way that suggests I am a participant in the program rather than a volunteer in it.

AND THE PART THAT IS ABOUT SOMEBODY ELSE.

This document says nothing about photographing a young person, and giving permission here gives me none. Taking a photograph of a participant, being in one with a participant, or posting one, is covered by the code of conduct and the answer there is no.

CHANGING MY MIND.

I can withdraw this at any time by emailing [email protected], and the program will stop using my image going forward and will take it down where it controls the page. I understand that something already printed, already in a report that has been filed, or already shared onward by somebody else cannot be recalled.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this and the answer I gave above is my answer. I understand I can change it later and that saying no costs me nothing.

What you are agreeing to

WHY YOU ARE BEING ASKED THIS.

A conflict of interest is not a wrongdoing. It is a situation, and almost everybody who is any use in a community has some. The founder's cousin owns the catering company. A volunteer's day job is at the agency that refers young men here. Somebody's wife sits on the board of another program applying for the same grant. None of that is a scandal and none of it stops anybody volunteering.

What causes the damage is a conflict nobody knew about, found later by an auditor, a funder or a journalist. At that point the story is not the catering contract, it is the concealment, and the organization spends a year explaining itself instead of doing the work.

So this is a disclosure and not a test. There is no answer here that ends an application. Not disclosing something and being found out later does.

WHAT COUNTS.

Family or a close personal relationship with anybody who works here, volunteers here, sits on the board, or is a participant or a participant's family.

Any interest in a business that sells to this program or could, or that is paid by it, whether that interest is mine, my spouse's, my partner's, my child's, my parent's or my sibling's.

A role at another organization whose interests could pull against this one: another youth program, an agency that refers to us, a funder, a competitor for the same grant.

A gift, a fee, a commission, a discount or anything else of value offered to me by somebody because of my position here.

WHAT I AGREE TO DO.

I have written above, honestly, everything I am aware of. Where I have left a box blank, I am saying there is nothing to write in it rather than that I did not get to it.

When something changes, I will tell the program rather than waiting for next year's form. A conflict that arises in March and is disclosed the following January was undisclosed for ten months.

Where a decision is being made that touches something I have disclosed, I will say so before the discussion rather than after it, and I will step out of the decision if asked. I will not use my position here, or anything I learn here, for my own gain or for somebody else's.

I will not accept a gift, a payment or anything of value from a family, a participant, a vendor or a partner because of what I do here, beyond something of token value offered in ordinary thanks.

WHAT HAPPENS TO WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN.

It goes on my volunteer record, it is read by the people who run the program and by the board where the board is deciding something it touches, and it may be summarised for an auditor or on the organization's annual return. It is not published, it is not shared with other volunteers, and disclosing something does not put it on a list.

I understand this is asked again every year, because the point of it is that it stays current.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this and what I have written above is complete and true as far as I know it. I will tell the program when it changes.

What you are agreeing to

WHY THIS DOCUMENT EXISTS AND WHY ONLY SOME PEOPLE SIGN IT.

Putting a young person in a vehicle is the single highest-risk ordinary thing this program does. It is more dangerous than anything that happens in the room, it is where safeguarding failures in programs like this one begin, and it is the thing an insurer asks about first. So the people who do it are checked further than everybody else, and everybody else is not asked for their insurance details, because a licence number this program has no use for is a licence number it can only lose.

WHAT I AM CONFIRMING.

I hold a current, valid driver licence, it is not suspended, restricted or the subject of proceedings, and the details I have given above are correct.

I carry auto liability insurance that is current and at least at the minimum Florida requires, on the vehicle I would use.

I have not been convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, of reckless driving, or of leaving the scene, in the last five years, and I am not currently charged with any of those.

THE DRIVING RECORD CHECK, WHICH IS NOT THE BACKGROUND SCREENING.

I authorize We The Revolt, Inc. and its insurer to obtain my motor vehicle record from the state that issued my licence, now and at any point while I am approved to drive here.

This is a different thing from my background clearance. It looks at my driving history rather than my criminal history, it is run by the program's insurer rather than by the agency that clears me, and consenting to one is not consenting to the other, which is why they are two documents. I understand the program may decline to approve me as a driver on what that record shows, that this is an insurance decision rather than a judgment about me, and that it does not affect my volunteering in any other role.

HOW I WILL ACTUALLY DRIVE.

I will never transport a participant alone. There are two approved adults in the vehicle, or two young people, every single time. There is no version of this rule that bends for a short trip, for somebody I know well, for a young person whose ride did not turn up, or because it is raining.

Every trip is one staff know about before it starts. I take the route between the two places and nowhere else: no stopping at my house, no errand on the way, no drive-through.

Everybody wears a seatbelt and nobody rides in a seat they are too small for. I do not exceed the number of seats. My phone is not in my hand. I do not drive after drinking anything at all, or on any medication that says not to.

I do not use my own vehicle for program transport unless the program has approved that vehicle, and I do not lend a program vehicle to anybody.

WHEN SOMETHING CHANGES OR GOES WRONG.

I will tell the program the same day if my licence is suspended, restricted or expires, if my insurance lapses or is cancelled, if I am charged with any driving offence, or if my medical fitness to drive changes.

I will report any accident, any damage and any near miss that happened with a participant in the vehicle, however minor and whether or not it was my fault, on the same day. I will not decide on my own that something was too small to mention.

I understand that driving a participant alone, or transporting one on a trip staff did not know about, ends my involvement the same day, and that this is the rule the code of conduct already put on that list.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this, everything I have stated above is true, and I authorize the driving record check. I understand approval to drive can be withdrawn at any time and that it is separate from being cleared to volunteer.

What you are agreeing to

WHAT I AM AGREEING TO DO.

I am volunteering with the Defining Narratives Institute, a program of We The Revolt, Inc. I understand I am a volunteer and not an employee, that this is unpaid, that it creates no contract of employment and no expectation of one, and that nothing here entitles me to wages, benefits or notice.

HOURS AND TERM.

The commitment is roughly two to four hours a week, and a term of twelve months from the day I am made active. A mentoring cohort runs twenty three weeks, so a mentor who starts one is asked to see it out rather than leave a young man halfway. Other roles are shift by shift and there is no minimum.

I understand the program will tell me what is expected of my role in writing before I start it, and that I can say no to a shift or a placement without having to give a reason.

TRAINING.

Before I have contact with a young person I complete the program's orientation, which covers safeguarding, mandatory reporting, trauma-informed practice and what this curriculum is actually teaching. It is short and it is not optional. Where my role needs anything further, the program provides it and pays for it.

I understand that if training I am required to hold lapses, my involvement pauses until it is current again, and that this is not a disciplinary matter.

SUPERVISION AND WHO I ANSWER TO.

I will be told who my staff contact is on the day I am made active, and that person is who I go to. I will attend the check-ins the program asks for, and I will raise anything that concerns me about a young person, about another volunteer, or about how the program is being run, without waiting to be asked and without being afraid of what raising it will cost me.

I will follow the direction of program staff while I am here, including when I disagree with it, and I will take a disagreement up afterwards rather than in front of a young person.

RECORDS, AND WHAT THE PROGRAM HOLDS ABOUT ME.

The program holds my name and contact details, the documents I have signed, the fact that I hold a background clearance with who issued it, what it covers and when it runs out, and a record of what I have done here. It does not hold my criminal history and has never been sent it. I can ask for a copy of what is held about me and I can ask for it to be corrected.

TELLING THE PROGRAM IF MY SCREENING CHANGES.

I agree to tell the program promptly, and in any case within seven days, if my background clearance is revoked, suspended, allowed to lapse or comes under review, or if any agency tells me I may no longer volunteer with young people.

The reason is stated plainly in the screening verification document I signed and it is worth repeating here, because this is the agreement people actually remember: Defining Narratives does not request my screening, so it is not told when anything about it changes. If a clearance is revoked, the only people who know are the agency and me. Telling the program is not the same as being removed; the ordinary outcome while something is under review is that I pause, which is not a disciplinary matter.

ENDING IT.

I can stop at any time by telling my staff contact or emailing [email protected]. I am asked, not required, to give two weeks so a young person I am working with can be told properly and handed over rather than finding out I have gone.

The program can end my involvement at any time, with or without a reason, and will tell me to my face where that is possible. Where it is a conduct matter I will be told what the concern is and given the chance to answer it, unless a young person's immediate safety means I have to be stood down first and spoken to after.

I understand that stepping back is a normal thing that people do, that coming back later is welcome, and that leaving well is part of the work.

THE AFFIRMATION.

I have read this agreement and I accept it. I understand I am an unpaid volunteer, that I am here at the program's invitation and can be asked to stop, and that I can stop myself at any time.