763 Burn Camp Multidisciplinary Staff: Efficacy of Training

Abstract

Abstract Introduction One of the strengths of burn camps is the multidisciplinary staff who passionately combine their areas of expertise to create the camp experience, including fire service, burn survivors, burn center staff, camping professionals, donors, and community members. This gift also brings a challenge in developing a staff training program and experience that meets the needs of a diverse staff. This project utilizes post camp staff surveys to enhance our training and overall camp experience. Methods Staff at a residential medical specialty burn camp participated in a two-day training and then week-long camp for pediatric burn survivors, ages 7 – 19. Staff training included: burn treatment and rehabilitation with nursing / PT / OT / psych; focused review of all campers; intentionality with level 1 & 2 skills (adapted from M. Brandwein). 36 staff responded anonymously to an online survey about their experience of staff training and success enacting skills and approaches during the week with campers. Results 85% reported staff training met the goals of getting to know each other, learning the flow / layout of camp, identifying leadership styles, and learning about the campers. 90% indicated the training met the goal of understanding general burn care and healing process, while 88% reported achieving the goal of learning the impact of trauma, the significance of telling our stories, and learning general counseling tips. This year we added a focus on intentionality to ensure that campers were learning camp skills AND life skills in each activity (e.g., learning how to safely belay climb AND to trust others to support you). Content analysis of the open-ended comments about the impact of intentionality on success revealed the following themes: Increased goal setting, thoughtfulness, planning/preparation, clarity, insight, presence. Some staff commented that it was less applicable for younger cabins and a concern about developing too many themes/goals. 88 percent of counselor respondents agreed / strongly agreed that individualized goal plans were implemented in their cabins based on camper review and camper assessment. Conclusions The development and implementation of staff training for burn camp brings a variety of challenges. Staff come with varied experience, knowledge, and training. There are also multiple goals around knowledge and teamwork. Counselor feedback supports the multidisciplinary training model for transmission of knowledge specific to the camp. An increased focus on intentionality in each of our camp activities brought mostly positive responses, particularly benefitting older camper activities (e.g., 3 day outcamps), while younger campers might be learning camp related skills initially in preparation for the life skills down the road. Applicability of Research to Practice These results help to support and create developmentally informed training and programming for rehabilitative burn camps.