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When we open staff training with Chris, the counselors suddenly realize that this is not just about the fun and games, but also about their role as youth development professionals.
Susan Hooks, Director
Riverview Camp for Girls
Mentone, AL
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Behold the question every parent ponders
before and after the camp season. The good news is that hiring
protocols and staff training programs at most high quality camps
prevent anyone with ulterior or unsavory motives from ever becoming a
part of the camp family. Whew. The bad news is that every summer, a
tiny fraction of the millions of boys and girls who attend camps in the
US and Canada are either mistreated by a camp staff member during the
season or drawn into an inappropriate relationship sometime after. I
believe that even a tiny fraction is unacceptable, so I want to share
the keys to protecting your child.
Readers familiar with my
work know what a tremendous advocate I am for youth camping. Having
worked for decades with the American Camp Association, the Ontario Camp
Association, the International Association of Burn Camps, the
Children's Oncology Camping Association, the Diabetes Camping
Association, and other venerable professional camp organizations, I
understand what a positive and powerful developmental growth experience
camp is for young people. [By the way, if you'd like to learn more
about research on the positive outcomes of camp, visit acacamps.org/research and download the report called "Directions."]
I
am also a tremendous advocate of child safety. As a clinical
psychologist and waterfront director with two little children of my
own, I'm probably one of the most safety-conscious people you'll meet.
Indeed, every summer, I bet my staff $500 that they'll never catch me
in any of our 64 camp boats without a life jacket. I've yet to lose
that bet. I also teach my children about safe and unsafe touch so they
understand the difference and could stop and report an inappropriate
advance. Even if it happened at camp.
Of course, camp and
safety go hand-in-hand. Campers do engage in risky activities at camp,
such as swimming, rock climbing, and horseback riding, but camp
directors ensure that every reasonable precaution is in place to
minimize the occurrence of accidents. Those precautions are part of
what make risky activities fun not frightening. Those precautions are
also what make parents trust high-quality camps. Naturally, smart
parents understand that no camp is accident-free, but when they can see the safety equipment in place, they are reassured. If you were to walk around camp, you could see the lifeguards on duty, see the safety harnesses on the climbers, and see the helmets on the riders.
Sadly, nobody could ever see
the potential for inappropriate behavior between a camp staff member
and a child. But that invisibility should not stop you from protecting
your child from predators by asking the right questions and looking for
the warning signs of an unhealthy relationship.
As I outline
in my The Summer Camp Handbook, you should begin by teaching your child
how to protect him- or herself from unsafe touch. Norman Friedman's
book Inoculating Your Child Against Sexual Abuse
provides perfect guidance here. Next, conduct the search for your
child's camp carefully. This careful search has many components but the
three that most parents neglect are:
- Finding out whether the camp is accredited and by whom
- Discussing the director's education and experience
- Asking about the camp's hiring protocols and staff training program.
In these three neglected domains, here's what you should verify:
- The
camp you send your child to should be accredited. In the US, this means
accredited by the American Camp Association. In Canada, this means
accredited by the province in which the camp operates. There are some
high-quality non-accredited camps, but you'll need to personally verify
hundreds of health, safety, and personnel standards before resting
assured you've chosen wisely. Use the ACA's new Accreditation Standards
for Camp Programs and Services as your guide.
- Your camp's
director should have years of youth development experience under his or
her belt and should participate in continuing professional
education-such as camp conferences-each year. Find out what their
professional credentials are, what conferences or seminars they last
attended, and what other camp experience they have.
- The camp
should freely share with you its protocols for conducting required
background checks. These could include criminal background checks, but
that will only uncover whether a person has been convicted of a felony
in the state or province in which the check is conducted. More
meaningful is the process of religiously checking a staff member's
references. Finding people who have known the prospective hire well and
who have witnessed their work with children is better than verifying
whether or not they are not a convicted felon. The camp should also
freely share with you its staff training program. This program should
include modules on appropriate touch, discipline, and communication
with children.
Finally,
ask the camp director what off-season communication he or she
officially sanctions between campers and staff. Because of the
expansive and unregulated nature of the Internet, most camp directors
do not permit the open exchange of e-mail addresses and screen names
between campers and staff. Instead, they establish password-protected,
supervised chat rooms on the camp's own web site. (Supervised means
that the camp director is reading every entry before posting it.) Other
camp directors are allowing no Internet communication, in favor of
handwritten postcards, which are carefully read before mailing. Find
out today what your camp's off-season communication policy is and steer
away from anything that is unsupervised or does not permit parental
access.
Lest your love and concern for your child evolve into
protective paranoia, let me emphasize that the personal relationships
that form between your child and the camp staff are typically
wonderful. They are what kids remember most about camp and what they
crave during the off-season. These relationships are also the necessary
foundation for growth. Without those caring relationships, there can be
no increased self-esteem or independence, no growth in social-skills or
confidence. The key to a positive experience at camp is a healthy,
nurturing relationship between children and their caregivers at camp.
For this reason, it is my sincere hope that the principles outlined
above will help you and your son or daughter find a camp where those
healthy relationships flourish.
Special Footnote for Camp
Directors: In addition to careful screening, thoughtful hiring
procedures, and a thorough staff training protocol, there exists a new
tool to help camp directors prevent predators from entering camps.
MySummerCamps.com has created a National Criminal Database &
National Sex Offender Search for camps. This service permits any camp
director to perform background checks on his or her staff and
volunteers at a very reasonable price. The turnaround time for these
background checks is instantaneous because it is all done online. I
recommend supplementing reference checks with this important background
search.
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Finding the best specialty camp is all about finding the best match
for your child's interests and abilities. Consider first the pros and
cons of the type (single sex vs. coed) and setting (day vs. resident).
These categorical decisions will help narrow the field and here's what
will help you target a high quality camping experience.
- Collaborate with your child.
In addition to providing you with surprising insights about interests
and abilities, involving your children in the camp selection process
gives them the self-determination that will reduce homesickness later
on. Children who feel forced to go to camp are more likely to
experience severe homesickness.
- Request local references.
Beyond the promotional materials camps produce lie the veteran camper
families who can share actual experiences that give you an accurate
sense of what the camp is like. Camp directors can give you the names
and numbers of returning camper families who live near you. Get
together-with the kids-to talk candidly about their camping experiences.
- Research retention rates.
The highest quality camps have staff and camper retention rates that
top 50% or more. Some camps even have internal leadership development
programs that enable them to hire all their full-fledged leaders and
staff from among their own leaders-in-training. Generally, the higher
the retention rates, the stronger the camp.
- Beware the shooting star.
Many specialty camps sell themselves by touting the name of a star
athlete. In reality, this celebrity may only show up for a few hours on
one day of the session. Put your faith in a specialty camp whose
instructional talent runs deep and wide.
- Spice it up.
The highest quality specialty camps offer a variety of other activities
from which campers can choose. Not only does participation in other
non-specialty activities provide mental and physical cross-training, it
helps ensure that campers don't get burned out doing the same thing all
day, every day.
Finally, remember that the choice to
attend a specialty camp must be put in the larger context of your
child's activity schedule. Some child development experts believe that
children are specializing too intensely at too young an age, in all
domains: athletic, academic, and artistic. While there is great merit
in discipline and the devotion to a single pursuit, such as playing
piano or soccer, there is also value in sampling a range of activities.
If your child is already a specialist of some sort, perhaps a
traditional, non-specialty camp is the perfect complement.
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Treating Homesickness at Camps 
