The chair of Scouting America’s Youth Protection Committee is one of the world’s experts on child abuse prevention

Michael Bourke’s job has never been easy.

For eight years, he interviewed and evaluated sex offenders within the U.S. federal prison system.

For 13 years, he served as chief psychologist for the U.S. Marshals Service, where he created and led a unit dedicated to assisting with the identification, investigation, apprehension and prosecution of sex offenders.

All told, he has studied more than 1,000 sex offenders over the last three decades, using his Ph.D. in psychology to try to understand them and, in turn, to help the rest of us keep our kids safe from them.

“I just had an interest in trying to make a difference in using psychology to help protect kids,” Bourke says. “They’re our most vulnerable population.”

Bourke is the chair of Scouting America’s Youth Protection Committee. Working alongside Scouting America Senior Vice President and Chief Safeguarding Officer Glen Pounder, Bourke’s job is to guide the committee as they work to enhance the culture of safety and accountability throughout the organization.

Bourke recently sat down with me to talk about his involvement with Scouting America, his experience guiding his own son along the road to Eagle Scout, and the one thing he tells parents when they ask him what they can do to protect their children.

You can watch our conversation in its entirety below or read on for some of the highlights.

Dr. Bourke, we’re thrilled to have you as the chair of Scouting America’s Youth Protection Committee. What can you tell us about the work that group has been doing?

The Youth Protection Committee is comprised of subject matter experts as well as survivors of sexual abuse in and outside of Scouting, and we have come together to support the efforts of Scouting America to help protect the youth that are in Scouting today as well as to acknowledge the abuses that have occurred in the past.

I think it’s a fantastic model to use both subject matter experts and survivors together. That collaboration allows for very interesting discussions. It’s proven to be very helpful for us — when we’re talking about policies — to get as many perspectives as we can. Even within our subject matter experts, we have multiple disciplines and multiple professional backgrounds. We have some in law enforcement, and we have those who have worked with children. And we have those who have worked with (victims of) trauma. We have just all these different perspectives coming together, and it really makes for rich conversations, making sure that we are taking everything into consideration to make the Scouting America youth protection policies as strong as possible.

Unfortunately, we know that there are people out there who are dangerous to youth. What have you learned in your decades of experience that might be relevant to parents of Scouts today?

One of the things I would tell parents is that, as a parent myself, I would want to place my children in an organization that has done everything possible to keep those individuals at bay. Vigilance is important. Education is important. Having a sense of collective responsibility for the youth — that’s really what it’s about. We’re forming a protective net, and that’s what protects kids. My participation in Scouting is really about making that net as powerful as possible.

The other thing that’s really important is communication. It sounds simple, but developing communication with your child — no matter how young they are — enables your son or your daughter to come to you and just explain that something happened that didn’t feel right, or something happened that was weird, and those are the conversations that parents should pay attention to. Those conversations are really the start of youth protection. It’s about the relationship with the youth and educating them but also letting them know that you’re not going to get mad at them if something happens and they just feel awkward or they just didn’t feel right about something — that your child can come to you and have that conversation and you’re not going to judge and you’re not going to be mad. That allows kids to really unburden themselves, and it could stop or prevent grooming or some of these other processes that take place, and we can just nip it right in the bud.

How big of a problem is the internet when it comes to youth protection?

The internet is a doorway. Sometimes it can be a great doorway. It’s a place where our kids can learn fascinating information. For adults, it’s the first place we turn to when we want to learn about something. Unfortunately, it’s also a door that monsters can walk through. It’s a door in which people reach out to our children when we otherwise may not have allowed that person to even have anything to do with our kids. So that’s our portal that we want to guard. That’s the place that we want to be vigilant toward. That initial door.

Your son is an Eagle Scout. Tell us about your experience in Scouting as a parent.

My wife and I enjoyed every moment that we spent with him in Scouting as he went through his journey. It’s getting harder and harder to find that in society. I think Scouting is safe. I wouldn’t have put my child in this organization if I didn’t have complete confidence in that. This is a great place for children to learn about leadership and all the different skills that are learned … those life skills that we need to be giving our kids. In my personal opinion, it’s the best place, the best opportunity we can give our kids. I think any parent considering putting their child in Scouting — it may very well be the best decision they can make.