I will not be outdone by other Drum Corps Internet Trolls (I own VMAPA.org)

[scheherazadesghost]

4 minutes ago, DSpruce said:

Haha I is done with you, Linda. You’ve revealed your whole self making it easy on me.

Sigh. I've been here the whole time. Not sure who Linda is. 🤷🏽‍♀️

[Jeff Ream]

4 hours ago, HockeyDad said:

Hoo Boy. I don’t think I want any part of either side. 

yeah. it's sad

[GetOFFmyDot]

So many years of bad leadership have allowed this dumpster fire to develop.   
 

I’m still hearing crazy stuff about RCA, the former ED who left rather suddenly….

 

it’s all so odd.  

[DSpruce]

Dudes, they’re trying so hard. Almost everyone on staff is doing this on top of day jobs. Pick a lane, do you want to overthrow or do you want to support new, new to npo, new to so much turnover, liable to make mistakes (not that that is an excuse, everyone knows), doing their best, folks. 

*the Linda thing is from a viral meme with an exasperated cute kid in it

Edited August 4, 2023 by DSpruce
Edited to soften bit about overthrowing and clarify a reference

[Richard Lesher]

I'd just like to let the DCP Admins know I'm fine with my thread totally taking an entirely different direction. 

I've been pressing the financial angle of attack, on the other side of this is a pincer move coming from the physical, mental, and professional abuse aspect of it. 

I've already submitted ethics complaints back in January of this year (2023), and SCV has given me no acknowledgement of it. This same batch of complaints were also sent to DCI as well. DCI at least acknowledge it and confirmed receipt. 

So to scheherazadesghost point, the SCV whistleblower process is entirely defunct. The fact I notified SCV about the dead link of VMAPA.org and I let 60 days pass before I moved to buy it is pretty clear they are sitting on their hands. 

The current whistleblower policy only got updated because of me. 

Nick Shilling the Vice President of Vanguard e-mailed my domain provider in an attempt to get VMAPA.org back for SCV. 

I ignored the request. But to the arguments floating around the SCV isn't interested in this web domain are greatly diluted by the expressed interest of Vanguard's Vice President. 

That request by the VP of Vanguard was sent on March 17, 2023 one week after they document the changes to the new policy. 

Now, this is interesting. The Whistleblower Policy and the Personnel Manual are two separate documents. 

The Employee Manual located at:

https://www.scvanguard.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/VMAPA-Personnel-Manual.docx.pdf

It still references the below contacts for a whistleblower procedure

I down loaded this again just now on August 3, 2023. 

I can't find a newer version of this manual. So I assume it's the current one. 

None of these people are employed by Vanguard anymore and they are the ones reference to contact with a whistleblower issue.  

I'll also point out that in my ethics complaints back in January to DCI and SCV I also referenced the employee manual, and I also pointed out the contacts, because two of the three names were identified in my complaint. 

So all parties involved were reminded of this document and the contents therein. 

Yet here it still is as evidence as a counter argument that nothing material has been actioned toward a functioning whistleblower policy that Vanguard operates under. 

In addition to why I came back to this thread was to sort of express my condolences to scheherazadesghost. She is taking a load of crap because the process which she has to go through isn't anchored in black and white reference material. 

I've been through this Rodeo back in 2006. I get it. I totally do. I don't expect to change any minds, but there are a million people on the fence wondering who is the one making sense and I just dumped the Vanguard Employee Manual in this discussion pointing to former employees. Every SINGLE EMPLOYEE listed as a whistleblower contact is NO LONGER WITH VANGUARD. 

This is too easy....................

[BlueStainGlass]

11 hours ago, GetOFFmyDot said:

So many years of bad leadership have allowed this dumpster fire to develop.   
 

I’m still hearing crazy stuff about RCA, the former ED who left rather suddenly….

 

it’s all so odd.  

collecting infinity stones of corps that folded 

[scheherazadesghost]

Some stats and additional info:

I have discussed institutional and member abuse with 16 other alum. And I have receipts that are largely locked behind the confidentially requested of them. I honor that confidentiality before the public's "right" to know to leverage (or potentially exploit) their information for improvement.

14 of these alum reported they were abused themselves. The other 2 connected me to the reporters.

Not including myself, 3 of them went through the whistleblower process once it was put in place. 2 of them were satisfied with the result and do not desire to take further action. Great. The other two, myself and one other, are thoroughly not satisfied with our processes and were either left open-ended (in my case)... or acknowledged, by my direct insistence, but otherwise in limbo for months without communication (in the other case.) The rest fear retaliation or just want to move on with their lives.

I've indicated in this thread that the whistleblower process at Vanguard, as it stands and as it's existed in the past, risks re-traumatizing reporters. Let me be more clear about what that means.

Here is a DOJ memo from 2014: The Importance of Understanding Trauma-Informed Care and Self-Care for Victim Service Providers. It takes a bit of translation as it's obvious drum corps are in no position to act as "Victim Service Providers." And yet, by opening necessary whistleblower processes, they're venturing into doing just that, but in a hybridized way. (They need the information from reporters to improve, but they can't seem to bear the liability of being responsible for reporter wellbeing.) And yet this DOJ memo indicates that anyone in contact with abuse reporters needs to be "trauma-informed" not just for the reporters' sakes, but to prevent what it describes as "vicarious trauma" for those facilitating the reporting process.

This is, in part, why MAASIN lists the staff (and relevant credentials) that reporters will be talking to and outlines the entire process from start to finish, updating reporters and modifying the process as needed along the way. All of their staff volunteer this service, and there is always a licensed mental health professional assigned to oversee each process. To do any less risks re-traumatization and the exploitation of reports for institutional gain without reporter vindication.

Re-traumatizing victim-survivors, reporters, and whistleblowers can look like:

Government Accountability Project: https://whistleblower.org/uncategorized/whistleblower-trauma-recovery-and-renewal/

Whistleblowers Blog: https://whistleblowersblog.org/features/diagnosing-retaliation-the-traumatizing-and-insidious-effects-of-whistleblowing/

The above outlines 9 forms of retaliation for whistleblowing and I'm checking which ones I have experienced and others have reported in response to our work. You can even witness some of it in this thread:

• gaslighting ✅
• mobbing   ✅
• marginalization  ✅
• shunning  ✅
• devaluation  ✅
• double-binding  ✅
• blacklisting  ✅
• counter-accusations  ✅
• and emotional and physical violence  ✅

I'm aware that Vanguard's staff are either volunteer or working for the organization in addition to their wage/salary-earning jobs. So are the staffs of most of the rest of the activity.

I argue that given Vanguard's reported historical abuses, that doesn't matter. They actively re-traumatize the members, staff, and alumni they abused historically. Fact. Ignorance of trauma-informed care is no longer an appropriate excuse. There is no appropriate excuse. The DOJ and Government Accountability Project outline the risks to reporters for relying on such excuses.

Vanguard is a public-facing youth education arts nonprofit, and their first priority should be harm reduction at this point.

Edited August 4, 2023 by scheherazadesghost
typos

[DSpruce]

Explaining factually why certain behaviors explicitly aimed at, not as a byproduct rather as a stated goal, the destruction of the current staff have not been received well in a way that is not accounted for by wishing to hide abuses, as otherwise claimed, is being called bullying here. 

[dcifanforlife]

Moderators should close this thread. Not relevant to 2023 drum corps season. 

[BlueStainGlass]

4 minutes ago, dcifanforlife said:

Moderators should close this thread. Not relevant to 2023 drum corps season. 

Well from the looks of all this work vanguard won't have a 24 and beyond because people want to bring every case possible against the corps in hopes of making it better but will only do the opposite. They don't have money and they won't have people that want to go back with all these issues. So nobody wins.