Additional Young Men Callings - Young Men Specialist

I noticed in the LCR 4.7 Release Notes the following note:

“Specialist” is a new calling that was introduced.

If I read the First Presidency Letter of October 5th correctly, Specialist is a valid calling for both Young Men and Young Women. Yet I only see it as a Standard Calling under Young Women > Additional Young Women Callings. Are there plans to add Young Men Specialist as a Standard Calling under Young Men? For now, we're using Custom Callings for this position.

Side note - A variation of the following note:

Enhanced the process of recording a membership record for a spouse or child that is not a member of the Church but is recorded as a linked record tied to a family member.

has been listed on both LCR 4.6 and LCR 4.7 Release Notes, but doesn't seem contextually related to the bullet items indented underneath the note.

greenwoodkl wrote:If I read the First Presidency Letter of October 5th correctly, Specialist is a valid calling for both Young Men and Young Women. Yet I only see it as a Standard Calling under Young Women > Additional Young Women Callings. Are there plans to add Young Men Specialist as a Standard Calling under Young Men? For now, we're using Custom Callings for this position.

You are reading it correctly. We were aware of the Young Women changes ahead of time and had been working on them before conference. The Young Men changes we heard about at the same time as you did. They will be made available by the first of the year.

"Young Men Specialist" is not found under Young Men callings. Do we add it as a custom calling under the category "Aaronic Priesthood Quorum Advisors" or "Activities and Sports"?

jblancaster wrote:"Young Men Specialist" is not found under Young Men callings. Do we add it as a custom calling under the category "Aaronic Priesthood Quorum Advisors" or "Activities and Sports"?

In the post before yours jonesrk stated they are working on it. Until the changes are made to the Young Men organization you are left to your own devices on how you want to enter them. You can add them as custom positions in the Young Men Presidency group of callings or in the Aaronic Priesthood Quorum Advisors group of callings. My ward is using the latter. If you are using the callings to support YM activities then you can add them to the Activities and Sports group. Without knowing the reorganization of callings structure we cannot tell what will happen. We are using the Aaronic Priesthood Quorum Advisors group because we feel that group will remain. It may be renamed but we doubt the calling group will disappear.

I've asked if I can share how I will be changing things so that you can benefit from those that are just renames versus new positions. We have some testing to do and some tweaking still, but I'm hoping we can make the additive changes sooner rather than waiting for the first of the year. The removed positions will wait until the beginning of the year either way.

Are we going to continue with the incredibly difficult to understand auth now that only the Bishopric and Young Women Presidency of the 'adults' in the ward can see a list of their young women or AP young men in Tools, or will those of us caught in the adviser/Specialist role continue to be blind to the organization we're called to mentor/lead/shadow/help/guide/support. And yes I say blind because here is how the conversations go:

Adviser/Specialist: Let me grab tools to see if any birthdays are coming up (or whatever reason you want to look up the youth)
Adviser/Specialist: Oh ya, I can't see that anymore - Goes to organization leader
Adviser/Specialist to Organization Officer: Hey, I can't see this list, can you get me the info I need
Organization Officer to Adviser/Specialist: I can see it, what's wrong with your app, all you do is go here and look at it.. oh, wait, why can't you see it. Have you called support to see how to get it?
Adviser/Specialist to Organization Officer: Hey, remember how I've been a Stake Technology Specialist since before there was even a Tools app to use, I promise with sugar on top that I am unable to see the app
Organization Officer to Bishopric Member: - Hey, did you know that the Advisers/Specialists can't see a list of the youth..
Bishopric Member to Organization Officer: I can see it, what's wrong with their app, all you do is go here and look at it.. Have they called support to see how they can get it?
Bishopric Member to Organization Officer: <alternate conversation> When I was in that calling I could see the list

So, after the enormous effort of actually convincing the governing organization officers that there actually is a deliberate church policy that keeps the information limited to the presidency members (Bishopric and YWP) - They ask what can be done, well, the Secretary needs to send the information to them.

The secretary then does a variation of the below:
1. Exports the data to a shared spreadsheet on the Cloud - against church policy
2. Exports the data and sends and email with this information - against church policy
3. Prints the data and distributes the pice of paper, which, since it isn't how people normally do things anymore, the paper is forgotten, left on the bench, in a classroom, leaving that information out for anyone to see, which I imagine if we're trying to keep personal data private, is really not keeping it private in that way - so against church policy, really.

What progress has been made on this? I had a conversation with the entire bishopric last night that was quite similar to the one posted above. The clerks and exec secretary can see the young men and they are confused as to why I can't see them. I'm the Priests Quorum Advisor and am only able to see "Priests Quorum Presidency" and "Priests Quorum Adult Leaders" where the bishop and bishopric members have a third option that has all Quorum members, which I don't.

We've been left with little choice but to create our own lists of the young men, to track them and their birthdays and information outside of church tools - which is not ideal. We are about 6 weeks into this new program since the time of implementation and we are unfortunately having our efforts hampered by insufficient tools. Please help us understand what is changing to address this and what a realistic timeframe is for any solutions. Thanks for your help.

I'm on the Beta for the Android app, and in the next version of that app, the quorum view is restored, my role is Deacon's Adviser so I can't speak to the specialist, but I'd assume it was there as well. Also, in LCR they have updated so the Adviser also has access to the data.

The permissions in LCR usually show the "latest thinking" on rights. It may take some time to trickle down to Member Tools.

What are the responsibilities of a young men specialist I am not seeing anything on here about it. I also don’t understand what I can’t go to class with my son after I drop off the rolls?