12 Aug, 2024 Lessons from a Fired Teacher By Debbie Ausburn A case from the New Jersey Supreme Court has some important lessons for youth organizations. The immediate issue involved defamation...
03 Aug, 2024 Do You Want An Independent or Internal Investigation? By Debbie Ausburn When your youth organization faces allegations of serious injury or abuse, the first question you need to decide is whether to commission...
29 Mar, 2023 Charges Against a Victim for Lying Show the Importance of Objective Investigations By Debbie Ausburn Officials have charged a 25-year-old employee of Stanford University with making false allegations of rape against a co-worker. She never...
25 Feb, 2023 Investigate Child Pornography in Your School and Get Charged with Possession By Debbie Ausburn A judge finally has dismissed child pornography charges against Bradley Bass, a Colorado school principal who investigated nude images...
22 Feb, 2023 First Step in Internal Investigations By Debbie Ausburn Another lawsuit against a youth organization highlights why we advise our clients that the first step in an internal investigation is to...
30 Jan, 2019 Internal Investigations and #MeToo: Interviewing Witnesses By Debbie Ausburn This post is part of a continuing series about responding to reports by a now-adult of past abuse at a youth-serving organization. The...
30 Jan, 2019 Pitfalls of Internal Investigations By Debbie Ausburn I ran across this article describing more fallout from the investigation of Larry Nassar, the U.S.A. Gymnastics (USAG) doctor convicted...
28 Jan, 2019 Internal Investigations: What Not To Say By Debbie Ausburn By now, most people have heard about the students from Covington Catholic High School, initially accused of harassing a Native American...
24 Jan, 2019 Internal Investigations and #MeToo: First Steps By Debbie Ausburn This post is part of a continuing series about responding to reports by a now-adult of past abuse at a youth-serving organization. The...
16 Jan, 2019 Mandated Reporting: Unsupervised Children By Debbie Ausburn One vexing question in the mandated reporter area is when to report children who appear to have no adults supervising them. It is more...
14 Jan, 2019 Mandated Reporting: Risks of Ignoring A Child By Debbie Ausburn From Connecticut comes this story of a former high school teacher charged with failing to make a mandated report of child sexual abuse...
09 Jan, 2019 “No-Touch” Policies Harm Children By Debbie Ausburn I have heard many cautious lawyers and more than one self-proclaimed expert claim that elementary school teachers and child care workers...