EOT Blog

Finding a Camp with Expertly Trained Staff

This blog was originally posted on http://blog.campeasy.com/ on April 16, 2013.

It’s not as simple as you might think…but it just got easier.

Back in the day, all a college kid needed to land a camp job was to be a college kid. Camps were started in the latter part of the 1800′s by progressive educators-college professors and prep school headmasters-with degrees from Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and so forth.

Naturally, the young men (and, eventually, women) those owner/directors employed were-you guessed it-students from Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale and Columbia. The educational pedigree was enough. Alternatively, a university student might have a patron of sorts who wrote a handwritten “letter of reference” attesting to their character.

I don’t have hard data to support my gut feeling, but I sense that by the 1950′s, that Ivy League line was all but erased. Yet with all of the beneficial variety in staff educational backgrounds came looser (dare I say sloppy?) hiring practices. Enter movies such as Meatballs, whose portrayal of camp shenanigans in the 1970′s is as legendary as it is accurate.

The second millennium ushered in a new wave of staff hiring practices. Heightened awareness of physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by camp staff, along with industry associations that emphasized staff professionalism, established practices like background checks for all staff and transformed slapdash one-day orientations into “staff training week.”

These days, camp directors won’t even look at a prospective staff member’s application without first conducting a criminal background check and acquiring three references. There are even a growing number of national and provincial accreditation standards that suggest specific topics for staff training, which is wonderful. Topics such as equity and diversity, which never got mentioned, now get equal billing alongside lifeguard training and behavior management.

All of this specificity and conscientiousness has created a new problem, however. There is no longer enough time during staff training week (which in most cases is actually five days, not seven) to cover all of the recommended topics in any kind of meaningful depth. The average camp staff member needs to know everything from CPR and first-aid for anaphylaxis to bullying prevention and best practices for “responding to sensitive issues.” So although industry professionalism is an admirable goal, constraints in time and on-site expertise mean it is seldom fully achieved at the level of the front-line staff member.

How can a twenty-first century camp train professional-grade staff without expanding staff training week into staff training month? The answer is ridiculously simple: online education that staff complete before staff training week. Today’s college students already spend 6-8 hours per day online. Why not create a library of YouTube-length videos hosted by the top professionals in youth development and education? And, to ensure that the young man or woman taking care of your son or daughter has actually understood what they’ve watched, each video should be followed by a quiz whose results are also viewable to the camp director.

Enter ExpertOnlineTraining.com, an educational website with an impressive library of videos hosted by internationally renowned authors like Dr. Michael Thompson (of Raising Cain fame), Dr. Joel Haber (of BullyProof Your Child fame), and Faith Evans (of The More the Merrier fame). There are even videos hosted by Canadian canoeing expert Mike Sladden (ofCamp Pathfinder in Algonquin Provincial Park fame).

Ok, full disclosure: I co-founded the site. But that’s exactly why it should matter to moms and dads. I’m a father of two campers, ages 8 and 10. So now you now know an industry insider and camp parent who created an educational solution to a serious problem no camp director would dare mention. I’m biased, of course, but I recommend that every parent look for the EOT logo on their camp’s website and ask how they use ExpertOnlineTraining.com to complement their on-site training.

Your child deserves a capable leader, not just a student with a smile. And yes, we now have a video training module on treating anaphylaxis. Thank you, Dr. Laura Blaisdell.

Dr. Christopher Thurber, a frequent contributor to camping publications and health blogs, works as a clinical psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He is the co-author of The Summer Camp Handbook and the host of the homesickness prevention DVD entitled The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. Learn more on Chris’s website: CampSpirit.com.