Camp Counselors Research Articles

QLIF-10. FAMILY CAMP: A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY, HOLISTIC INTERVENTION FOR BRAIN TUMOR PATIENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES

A brain tumor diagnosis is a devastating and life-altering event that impacts the entire family. Families experience radical change of roles due to cognitive, physical, and emotional changes resulting from the illness. “Family Camp” was a targeted psychosocial intervention to create a safe environment that would provide families with children respite from daily burdens and connect them with similar others. In 2014, a multi-disciplinary team established a weekend camp. Staff included artists, body workers, psychologists, “camp counselors”, doctors, nurses, social workers, who are members of their healthcare team, and community volunteers. Interventions included counseling, community building, and educational sessions. Communication strategies were suggested to enhance family communication. Opportunities for art, singing, games, and rest were provided. Anxiety, stress, depression, coping, and values-based living were measured pre and post camp using DASS21, CES-D, Brief Cope Inventory, Values Based Living, and surveys. 11 families (22 adults) attended camp; 15 adults remained the entire duration. A paired sample t-test was conducted to compare scores before and after camp on a variety of outcomes. On the DASS21 patients (n=7) reported statistically significant decreases in the axes of depression and stress; p= 0.038 and 0.0077 and caregivers (n=8) reported statistically significant decreases in depression and anxiety; p=0.02 and 0.017. This was also reflected on the CES-D; p=0.021. Subjective assessments were consistent with these observations, and most felt that the experience made them closer as a family. A multi-disciplinary program focused on patients’ families improves psycho-social stressors. Data suggest that support programs designed for entire families may be an important intervention that improves quality-of-life and perception of the “illness” experience. Sustainability of observed benefits are unknown, but serial interventions are likely important in this patient population with variable disease trajectories.

Who Needs Goals? A Case Study of a Goal-Free Evaluation

Background: Goal-free evaluation (GFE) is any evaluation in which the evaluator conducts the evaluation without knowledge of or reference to predetermined goals and objectives whereas the goal-based evaluator determines merit according to the evaluand’s goal achievement. Purpose: To examine a GFE in actual practice focusing on its operationalization as well as paying particular attention to the evaluation users’ perspective of its utility. Setting: The evaluand was a day long training of summer camp counselors on occupational therapy (OT) related skills such as feeding, dressing, and bathing. Intervention: GFE was the intervention however for comparison purposes an independent and simultaneous goal-based evaluation (GBE) also evaluated the evaluand. Research Design: Case study. Data Collection and Analysis: After the evaluation users read both the GBE and GFE reports, data collection consisted of a semantic differential questionnaires followed by a focus group. Additionally, the research team analyzed both GBE and GFE reports for relevant themes. Findings: The evaluation users reported a slightly more positive attitude toward the GFE report on the semantic differential yet many focus group respondents stated that they found the GBE report more useful or perceived no difference between the two. Evaluation users reported the benefits of GFE to include its potential for developing or aligning goals, expanding the pool of potential outcomes, and supplementing GBE strategies.

Family Camp: A multi-disciplinary intervention for brain tumor patients and families.

240 Background: The diagnosis of a brain tumor is a catastrophic life changing event that impacts the entire family. Patients and caregivers experience dramatic role changes, concern for their children, financial stress, and isolation. For many, the situation is overwhelming. A novel intervention to address these needs is “Family Camp”. Our vision for camp was to provide respite to the entire family, decrease caregiver stress, improve family connections and promote a sense of understanding and connection with the community at large. Methods: In a unique partnership with the widow of a former patient, the members of the UCSF Neuro-Oncology Division created and offered a weekend camp for brain tumor patients with children. Team members included MDs, RNs, social workers, psychologists, artists, body workers, “camp counselors” and community volunteers. In addition to respite, camp was structured through art, songs, projects and games to deliver opportunities for understanding and community building, including understanding the disease and its impact on the family. Therapeutic interventions included couples activities, counseling, parenting strategies, and providing a sense of connection to others dealing with brain tumors, the health care team, and camp volunteers. Anxiety, stress, depression, coping and values based living were measured pre and post camp using DASS21, CES-D, Brief Cope, Values Based Living instruments, and survey questions. Results: 11 families attended camp for 3 days in 2014. Improvement was noted in post camp testing of depression, anxiety and stress versus pre-camp. Survey questions showed the most common and important outcome to be connection, specifically that patients, caregivers, and children made connections with similar others. Families reported being able to relax and felt taken care of. They liked the opportunity for undistracted family time, getting to know their health providers outside of the office, and couples benefited from family counseling. Conclusions: Capitalizing on the unique skills of a multi-disciplinary team, one that includes the patient’s health care team, can lead to the delivery of a novel intervention that improves the illness experience of brain tumor patients and families.

Camp HOPE as an Intervention for Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: A Program Evaluation of Hope, and Strength of Character

Children exposed to domestic violence are at-risk for physical, mental, and social difficulties that have received an increased focus among researchers and policy makers. Using Snyder’s (2000) theory of Hope as a conceptual framework, Camp HOPE America is a summer camp program targeting school-aged children exposed to domestic violence. The purpose of this study is to present the changes in child hope before and after camp and correlate child hope to positive character strengths as rated by camp counselors. This study used a matched pretest posttest design to examine the change in hope, and strength of character among 229 school-aged children participating in Camp HOPE America. Results showed that hope, and psychological strengths improved from pre-test to post-test assessments. Additionally, children’s scores on hope were positively associated with the character strengths of zest, grit, self-control, optimism, gratitude, social intelligence, and curiosity obtained from counselor observations. These findings highlight hope as a coping resource for children exposed to domestic violence and provides preliminary support Camp HOPE America as an intervention within the established Family Justice Center system in the US.

Facilitating Positive Youth Development through Residential Camp: Exploring Perceived Characteristics of Effective Camp Counsellors and Strategies for Youth Engagement

Previous research has demonstrated that participation in a residential camp can lead to positive outcomes such as the development of a sense of identity, increased responsibility, enhanced self-esteem, and improved social skills. Despite these promising findings, there is minimal research that examines the specific processes that lead to these positive outcomes. Researchers have identified that leader characteristics and youth engagement play an important role in influencing outcomes within positive youth development programs. The purpose of this study was to explore perceived camp counsellor characteristics and strategies for youth engagement that are believed to facilitate positive youth development within the residential camp setting. This study applied a qualitative exploratory approach to collect data from residential camp counsellors. The research took place at a Canadian residential summer camp that serves children and youth between the ages of 8 and 16 primarily from low-income families. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with camp counsellors and a thematic analysis was used to identify themes. The results outline two main themes: perceived characteristics of an effective camp counsellor and youth engagement strategies. Within the first theme related to characteristics of being an effective counsellor, four subthemes emerged, including (a) being understanding and compassionate, (b) ability to maintain equanimity, (c) having a sense of humour, and (d) being a positive role model. Within the second theme related to strategies for youth engagement, there were four themes, including (a) individualizing the activities, (b) facilitating initial engagement by making it fun, (c) creating an autonomy-supportive environment, and (d) providing leadership opportunities. Findings are discussed in relation to current research and recommendations are provided regarding how to utilize these findings in an applied context. These include recommendations related to (a) the utilization of recruitment and training approaches that aim to identify necessary staff characteristics in new recruits and promote these characteristics with new camp counsellors, (b) the provision of programs and services that support stress management for staff while working in the camp context, and (c) the development of capacity building opportunities for staff that includes evidence-based training on how to engage youth and highlights best practices for initially engaging youth as well as how to maintain engagement over time.

Arranging Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon by Ryan Raul Bañagale

Reviewed by: Arranging Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon by Ryan Raul Bañagale Elizabeth A. Wells Arranging Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon. By Ryan Raul Bañagale. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. [xv, 209 p. ISBN 9780199978373 (hardcover), $105; ISBN 9780199978380 (paperback), $21.95; (e-book, Oxford Scholarship Online).] Music examples, illustrations, companion Web site, bibliography, index. Ryan Raul Bañagale’s Arranging Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon is one of a number of second- or third-generation works on American cultural identity that are part of a groundswell of interest in American music. Growing out of his doctoral work at Harvard, Bañagale weaves a masterful history of George Gershwin’s classic by looking at arrangements as diverse as those for harmonica to the O’Hare airport’s use of the work in its underground concourse, “Terminal of Tomorrow.” At first glance, this would seem like a scholarly effort that would produce mixed and often disjointed results, but Bañagale manages to discuss Gershwin’s work as a manifestation of an array of American experiences that seems to bring it all together to show how Gershwin, his legacy, and our own uses of American cultural artifacts play out in history. As the author writes in his opening, [End Page 113] there are three central concerns to the book: “arrangements, mythmaking, and the recursive power of George Gershwin and Rhapsody in Blue in narratives of America and its music” (p. 1). Although the author has chosen a few signal arrangements to examine through this lens, he does make reference to many other arrangements and important touchpoints for the work throughout American history, including a seemingly over-the-top version for multiple pianists featured at the 1984 Olympic games. The author has chosen a few important arrangements of the Rhapsody to investigate: first, the Ferde Grofé orchestration that has become famous as an early and “original” version of the work; Leonard Bernstein’s youthful arrangement for camp band as well as his famous recording from 1959; Duke Ellington’s arrangement; harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler’s version; and perhaps most intriguingly, the use of the Rhapsody in United Airlines’ advertising campaign, which has continued for decades. Along with the prose, there is a Web site, which provides helpful links to performances and clips that are referred to in the book. This makes for an interesting study—one can listen to various versions and excerpts while following the story of the Rhapsody through multiple iterations. Certainly one of the most compelling chapters of the book, and one that will be of interest to both a more general audience and to Bernstein scholars, is the chapter investigating Bernstein’s relationship with the work. Combining careful examination of the sources in the Bernstein archive with the version that the musician eventually recorded (with particular cuts) shows the Rhapsody and Gershwin as central controlling ideas in Bernstein’s musical consciousness. From his early teenage days as a camp counselor at a summer camp (when he first learned of Gershwin’s death over the radio), to his iconic (in its own right) recording with the New York Philharmonic, Bañagale tells a very compelling narrative of Bernstein’s tortured relationship with Gershwin’s legacy. Trying to live up to the earlier composer (noting Bernstein’s “Why Don’t You Run Upstairs and Write a Nice Gershwin Tune?” in his Joy of Music as a central text), while also trying to get over his death, the author sees the Rhapsody as a continuing preoccupation in Bernstein’s musical life. This is certainly one of the strongest chapters of the book. The only weak point is the assertion that the Rhapsody and its meaning to Bernstein were wrapped up in the musician’s sexuality. Many authors have established that Bernstein’s homosexuality was a central concern in his life and career, but the argument made for the Rhapsody, in particular, as relating to this important aspect of Bernstein’s identity seems a little forced. One of the other strengths of this book is its demystifying and demythologizing of the Gershwin classic...

The Coming of John, with Apologies to W. E. B. Du Bois and Amus Mor

The Coming of John, with Apologies to W. E. B. Du Bois and Amus Mor John H. Bracey Jr. (bio) “John,” she said, “does it make every one—unhappy when theystudy and learn lots of things?”He paused and smiled. “I am afraid it does,” he said.“And, John, are you glad you studied?”“Yes,” came the answer, slowly but positively — W. E. B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk I first saw Coltrane live at Birdland in New York City, during the summer of 1959. I was working as a potwasher/waiter at Camp Sea Breeze, located on the south coast of Staten Island. This camp for unwed mothers and children up to the age of twelve was run by the Community Service Society, under the directorship of the head of the School of Social Work at Howard University. My older sister was a counselor and I got my job in the kitchen. Due to an early socialization by my older cousins in Chicago, I had known of Coltrane through some of his work with Gene Ammons and Johnny Griffin, both hard-bop tenors from Chicago, and of his current role in the Miles Davis Quintet. After growing up in Washington, D.C., upon arriving in New York I soon learned that New Yorkers thought D.C. was socially and culturally part of the Deep South. I was warned not to go to Manhattan, where I’d face the possibility of becoming hopelessly lost, or being attacked and robbed by street gangs who would recognize me by dress and speech as easy prey. What rescued my social status was my love of jazz, and my awareness of the importance of John Coltrane. One of the older (i.e., early twenties) Black camp counselors had a copy of Monk’s Music which, in addition to the striking cover photo of Thelonious Monk sitting in a child’s red wagon, featured John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophones. This is the session where Monk cuts short his opening solo on “Well You Needn’t,” catching Coltrane off guard and necessitating Monk’s famous shout of “Coltrane, Coltrane.” After a brief hesitation, [End Page 623] Coltrane comes roaring in. Sitting on the bunk beds or floor of our dorm room we holler and slap five with each other, playing that short segment over and over so we can join Monk in calling forth the best tenor sax player on the planet. Monk’s voice, Coltrane’s name, Coltrane’s solo. For a jazz-loving teenager it couldn’t get any better than that. But it did. Wally Whitehead, fellow kitchen worker, and my self-appointed guide through the perils of Manhattan, informed me that Miles Davis was playing a stint at Birdland with Coltrane on tenor, and we had to go. I reminded Wally that I was still seventeen and couldn’t get into a nightclub that served alcohol. Wally looked at me in disgust, then said I guess we’ll have to sit in the “peanut gallery,” which was an area up and back away from the bandstand that was designated “no alcohol.” Wally was annoyed that he couldn’t be cool and sip Scotch. I cared more about the music than the alcohol or appearing “hip” to overly self-important New Yorkers. It was the standard Miles Davis small-group set: familiar pieces, short, five to seven minutes top, tight ensemble opening and close, solos technically brilliant, but not too far out. Coltrane clearly was constrained by the format and would be cut off by Miles and Cannonball Adderly when Miles thought the time limit for the piece was nearing. On at least two occasions Miles and Cannonball moved in on Coltrane from both sides and began to play the theme over Coltrane’s solo, forcing him to join in the closing. Sharing what we saw as Coltrane’s frustration, we muttered to ourselves, Let him play, let him play, he was just getting started. We went back to Camp Sea Breeze, and put on Monk’s Music. The next summer, Wally and I went again to the Randall’s Island Jazz Festival. In an amazing stroke...

Culture Camp, Ethnic Identity, and Adoption Socialization for Korean Adoptees: A Pretest and Posttest Study.

This study explores the impact of racial-ethnic socialization on adopted South Korean children and adolescents who attended a sleepaway Korean culture camp for one week. This camp provided racial-ethnic socialization experiences via exposure to camp counselors, staff, and teachers who were Korean Americans, Korean nationals, and Korean adult adoptees, and exposure to cultural activities and discussions. Using a pretest-posttest design to control for the lack of a comparison group (McCall & Green, ), 75 Korean adoptee children and adolescents (mean age = 12.96) completed both the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) and the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) surveys at pretest and posttest, and completed the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) at posttest. Results indicated that adoptees reported lower levels of depression at the end of camp than at the beginning of camp, but little variance could be attributed to ethnic identity at posttest. The results of this study suggest that scholars investigate the possibility that adoptee culture camps may provide an adoption socialization experience that may be more salient for adoptees than the racial-ethnic socialization that was intended. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Transformative Learning and the 4-H Camp Counselor Experience in Minnesota

While many studies about the 4-H camping experience focus on youth who are campers, few studies examine the outcomes of the experience for counselors. This study examines the extent to which 4-H camp results in transformative learning for 4-H members who serve as camp counselors, examines the perceived changes that occur within counselors, and describes the factors and characteristics of camp that result in personal transformation. The population for this study was 2012 Minnesota 4-H camp counselors. Using the Transformative Learning and the Camp Experience Staff Member Survey, the results indicated that camp counselors experienced transformative learning. Major personal changes involved developing skills for working with children and exposure to new people, activities, and experiences. Factors leading to personal transformation included the opportunity to be role models and positively impact children, opportunities for leadership and challenge, and camp traditions. This study provides support for strong and intentional camp counseling experiences that can positively impact the individual, 4-H campers, and later, the communities in which these camp counselors reside.

Dispatches from Summer Camp: Literacies of Suds and Scam

Rhetorical analysis of a collection of kowtowing letters written by summer camp counselors and campers, arguing that they provide a useful window into youth literacy development and conditions that foster socially-engaged, critically literate practice.

Effects of a summer emergent literacy intervention for rising kindergarteners

This study examined the effectiveness of a nine-week summer emergent literacy program implemented in a Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) summer program that serves families from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Participants were four- and five-year-old children attending a YMCA summer camp. After being placed in appropriate respective skill-level groups, children received one-hour, daily emergent literacy instruction from their camp counselors, who were trained as novice reading teachers. The teachers used emergent literacy activities to support letter-naming fluency and growth in letter-sound correspondence recognition in addition to mastery of read-aloud texts. The 28 participants experienced positive growth on both dependent measures (letter-naming fluency and letter-sound fluency), indicating the efficiency of the intervention as a tool for improving school readiness for children from low-income families. Additionally, the results suggest that beginning reading teachers may be able to conduct eff...

"It's not Just Camp!": Understanding the Meaning of Children's Cancer Camps for Children and Families.

The purpose of this philosophical hermeneutic inquiry was to understand the meaning of children's cancer camps for the child with cancer and the family. Six childhood cancer families and 5 cancer camp counselors were interviewed, in order to bring understanding to this topic. Findings from this research revealed that camp means different things for different families, and that much is at play in the cancer camp experience: the healing and developmental power of play, finding acceptance and fit, grief as something to live with versus "get over," storytelling as a means of reshaping and understanding traumatic experiences, and the solidarity of the community as one that creates intense, healing bonds. Children's cancer camps, we conclude, should be considered a necessity, versus a luxury, and could even be thought of as a psychosocial intervention for some children and families. Barriers such as structure of funding and access to resources are present and likely due to the separateness of camps from hospital programs.

Building Resilience After School for Early Adolescents in Urban Poverty: Open Trial of Leaders @ Play.

Leaders @ Play is a park after-school program for urban middle school youth designed to leverage recreational activities for social emotional learning. Mental health and park staff co-facilitated sports and games to teach and practice problem solving, emotion regulation, and effective communication. Additional practice occurred during multi-family groups and summer internships as junior camp counselors. We examined feasibility and promise via an open trial (n = 3 parks, 46 youth, 100 % African American, 100 % low-income, 59 % female, M = 13.09 years old). Improvements in social skills and reductions in problem behaviors lend support to after school programs as a space for mental health promotion.

Training and Supervision of Counselors at a Residential Grief Camp

Peer-based grief camps, utilizing a volunteer staff, represent one method of mutual aid support for children. Manitou Experience is an example of a week-long residential camp for grieving boys. The recruitment, training, and supervision of Manitou Experience’s camp counselors and clinical team members are explained as they relate to program development and facilitation of positive change in its campers. Strengths and challenges of group processes are explored and discussed.

Interrelations of maternal expressed emotion, maltreatment, and separation/divorce and links to family conflict and children's externalizing behavior.

Research has documented that maternal expressed emotion-criticism (EE-Crit) from the Five-Minute Speech Sample (FMSS) predicts family conflict and children's externalizing behavior in clinical and community samples. However, studies have not examined EE-Crit in maltreating or separated/divorced families, or whether these family risks exacerbate the links between EE-Crit and family conflict and externalizing behavior. The current study examined the associations between maternal EE-Crit, maltreatment, and separation/divorce, and whether maltreatment and separation/divorce moderated associations between EE-Crit and children's externalizing problems, and EE-Crit and family conflict. Participants included 123 children (M = 8.01 years, SD = 1.58; 64.2 % males) from maltreating (n = 83) or low-income, comparison (n = 40) families, and 123 mothers (n = 48 separated/divorced). Mothers completed the FMSS for EE-Crit and the Family Environment Scale for family conflict. Maltreatment was coded with the Maltreatment Classification System using information from official Child Protection Services (CPS) reports from the Department of Human Services (DHS). Trained summer camp counselors rated children's externalizing behavior. Maltreatment was directly associated with higher externalizing problems, and separation/divorce, but not maltreatment, moderated the association between EE-Crit and externalizing behavior. Analyses pertaining to family conflict were not significant. Findings indicate that maltreatment is a direct risk factor for children's externalizing behavior and separation/divorce is a vulnerability factor for externalizing behavior in family contexts with high maternal EE-Crit. Intervention, prevention, and policy efforts to promote resilience in high-risk families may be effective in targeting maltreating and critical parents, especially those with co-occurring separation/divorce. Key Words: expressed emotion, EE-Crit, Five-Minute Speech Sample; maltreatment, divorce, externalizing behavior.

Commentary: Reflections on a Career Devoted to the Integration of Handicapped Children

In this interview, retired educator Karen Hulme recounts how her interest in working with disabled children began at age six, a passion that led her to become a camp counsellor in her late teens at the School for Crippled Children. Next, she discusses her 42-year career at the Mackay Centre School, and some of the early initiatives that were in place to not only help integrate handicapped children into regular schools, but also introduce regular kids into the Mackay Centre—a process called "reverse integration." She talks about the "Circle of Friends," a school program that promotes social interactions, facilitates awareness, and breaks down barriers between students with and without disabilities. Lastly, she discusses the importance of educators in leadership positions to "… know who these kids are, what their needs are, and what their parents’ needs are …"

Capital C

Capital C Kolby Harvey (bio) Fun Camp Gabe Durham Publishing Genius Press www.publishinggenius.com 166 Page; Print, $14.95 Midway through Gabe Durham’s novel-in-pieces, Fun Camp, an overzealous camp counselor outlines the practice of withholding portions of meals from unruly campers to a quirky chef. “We can rebuild them,” she says of the hunger-weak children, “in our own image—hilarious, kooky, deferential.” Durham performs a similar manipulation, breaking apart the traditional summer camp narrative, stripping it down to essentials and refashioning the pieces into a funny, slightly creepy yet wholly American package. Split into seven sections, Fun Camp details a week at an unnamed summer camp, its perspective slipping in and out of various psyches—a pair of too-eager counselors, an utterly bizarre chef named Grogg, and letter-writing Billy are just a few. The fracturing of Durham’s narrative allows readers to map out the dynamic between campers and staff, between popular campers and more introverted ones, bringing to the forefront Fun Camp’s central conflict—the battle between introversion and extroversion. Reading Durham’s book I was reminded of my stint as a tutor for a high school summer program, the lone (gay) agnostic on a staff of evangelical Christians. While the program’s focus was educational, we did make a weekend field trip to a ranch in southern Oregon. The ranch’s owners introduced themselves with a speech about how to enjoy the wonders of Creation, sweeping their arms toward the trees in wide semi-circles to better convey that capital C. The specter of Christianity looms over Durham’s camp in the form of anonymous Lutheran founders whose breath the campers feel “cold on [their] necks.” Like Durham’s counselors, we too were forced to draw the quiet kids out of their shells and into group activities, into a manufactured bonding ritual, all in the name of fun. References to Lutheran founders aside, the true religious force in Fun Camp is fun itself, specifically an extroverted, prank-heavy type of fun. In the world Durham presents, skit night is transcendent. Craft time, too: homemade puppets offer the chance to “disappear in all the ways you always planned.” At one point, the “Jesus” in the phrase “come to Jesus” is, literally, replaced with “Fun Camp.” While fun and group participation are worshipped, we also see the consequences of camp culture, of forcing the introverted into extroversion. While campers are urged to “tap into the you that already loves all this,” to “let the bones of [the] spirit break free,” it often comes at a price. In “Withdrawal,” the narrator struggles with separation from “the most fun person [s/he] knows”—the television. “[S]oon I won’t even miss the ole boob tube,” the narrator says, “[a]s if that’s not the ultimate tragedy.” Induction into the cult of fun is often hard work, as the narrator of “Suggestion” tells us, begging, “some rule where everybody has to be nice and talk to you…because it is hard and I am trying.” Even the surrounding landscape is affected. Of the woods near camp, Durham says, “Half a forest got burned down for you to live it up.” For both camper and nature, the natural must be destroyed to make room for the unnatural, the contrived, the fun. Though it’s often hilarious, situated at the core of Fun Camp is a profound tragedy—the murder of the introvert. There’s only one way to be at Fun Camp, and that is outgoing, goofy, and prank-happy. Those who fail to conform are labeled “boring” or “bland,” and counselors fantasize about excommunicating them, Survivor-style, from the camp. Like America itself, the camp is a culture of winners and losers; those who pull pranks and those who have pranks pulled upon them; those who can throw together an entertaining skit and those who can’t. Woe unto them whose skits do not warrant a standing ovation. All of this isn’t to imply that Fun Camp isn’t without its tender moments, its “warm fuzzies” as the campers call them. A list of emergency procedures ends with the instruction “in a...

The Island of Misfit Toys

A philosophical hermeneutic study was conducted to understand the meaning of children’s cancer camps for the child with cancer and the family. Six families and five camp counselors were interviewed in order to bring understanding to this topic. While the research included findings related to: the concept of play at cancer camp (both philosophically and scientifically); grief as something to live with versus “get over”; storytelling as a means of re-shaping and understanding traumatic experiences; and the solidarity of the community as one that creates intense, healing bonds, this paper will detail the finding related to the children and families experience of finding acceptance and fit at camp.

Tying the Design of Your Camp Staff Training to the Delivery of Desired Youth Outcomes

As experience camp directors, we've seen the challenges faced by young camp counselors and inexperienced staff. Evaluations from staff at many camps motivated us to help our people be more effective with their campers. In response we created a comprehensive camp staff training. Lessons showed staff what we wanted them to do and say as they worked with campers. A key element of the training program was daily staff professional development sessions throughout camp. Evaluation results for both staff and campers show that intentional training on staff skills and behaviors supported the camp in achieving its identified youth development outcomes.

How Come the Best Job I Ever Had Was When I Worked at a Summer Camp?: Understanding Retention Among Camp Counselors

When attempting to discover a manner in which to maintain employment during the summer, many individuals have realized the job of camp counselor. What begins as a seasonal position may transform into a lifelong commitment to both person and place. For years, individuals have come to appreciate and understand the experiences that occur when approaching particular places. Data, for this study, was collected via in-depth interviews from twenty-four camp counselors from three separate, but similar camps. Phenomenological analysis on the qualitative data was performed to explore the staff retention amongst counselors. This study links sense of place as a salient component of employee retention among camp counselors. By developing a strong sense of community amongst staff, camp administrators may be promoting a deeper, more long-term, commitment among the staff and towards the camp.