RandallGrayson
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Mar 7, 2006, 11:00 AM
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10 Questions Parents Don’t Ask Summer Camps, but Should
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Dear Parent,
You’ve got a handful of camps you’re thinking about, and perhaps one or two in particular. Maybe you’ve even got one hand picked from the outset, because a friend recommended it to you. Through websites, e-mails, friends, or phone calls, you’ve found answers to most or all of the usual questions listed below.
Usual Questions: - Coed or single gender
- Activities offered
- Facilities (cabins, bathhouses, etc.)
- Camper return rate (should be over 55%; 65%+ is better as a general rule)
- Where do the campers generally come from
- Daily schedule and the degree of choice
- Orientation to competitive activities
- Core values of camp
- Menu, food preparation
- How is homesickness handled
- Besides fun, what are their goals for your camper
- Medical care
- Staff to camper ratios
- American Camping Association (ACA) – accredited or not
- What is the leadership like, and especially the director’s background
- Get some references from the camp
Those are all fine things to know about the camp you’re thinking of sending your child to. These questions are normal and expected, and as such, the answers are like playing tracks on a CD. You get the standard spiel for the standard question. It’s hard to avoid that, given the frequency with which those questions are asked. What I’d like to offer you here are ten more detailed questions that parents almost never ask when contacting a camp, but should.
One – ACA accreditation
All things considered, I’d feel better sending my child to an accredited camp than a non-accredited one. However, dig a little deeper here. Ask when the camp became accredited. Were there ever any lapses since then? When was the last inspection (they happen in 3-year cycles)? The camp may have received a perfect score, but then again lots of camps miss a few things here and there. Ask them what they missed. Were those deficiencies addressed?
Two – Statistics, level two
How full is the camp? Ask how many campers can attend a given session/time frame. Next, ask how many campers they had over the summer. If the camp is not 90-100% full, you should find out why. There may be good reasons, but you should determine what they are.
Any quality organization should know who does not return to them, and why. If a camp has a 65% return rate, 35% chose not to return. Obviously, some campers got too old, but you can figure out how many that would have been by asking for the number of campers in the two oldest age groups they serve (e.g., 14- and 15-year-olds). Also, some can’t afford to return, and some move away. But there are almost certainly kids who don’t come back because either they had bad experiences, or it just wasn’t right for them. A good camp will be able to break out the non-returning population for you beyond some generalities.
The same holds true for staff return rates. The average return rate is about 50%, but I think that a good camp would have 60% or more returning. Some camps enjoy 80-90% staff return rates. The variation here can be wide depending on several factors, such as the age of the staff, since older staff often get “real” jobs and can’t return. Generally, just make sure the explanations/analysis of non-returning staff sound good to you. If the camp can’t answer your question in detail, I believe it is a sign that continuous quality improvement isn’t part of their whole model.
Three – References and quotes/testimonials
References are a funny thing. When you ask for them, you’re going to get a list of people that the camp is sure loved the experience and will say wonderful things. While hearing a hand-picked person’s perspective on the camp is not totally useless, it isn’t all that useful either, given the source.
What you’d really like is to speak to some non-screened families who are coming back this summer and some people who chose not to for reasons other than that they aged out. The latter probably isn’t going to happen, because camps aren’t going to give you those names. However, you might be able to get a non-standard list of references, if the camp is willing and organized. There are a few ways to ask for this. Try asking for 20 names from your geographic area. Request to speak to a cross section of families based on their years at camp – 2, 3, 4, and 5. Ask for five camper families with last names starting with random letters, like B, F, S, R, and T.
Quotes from past campers and parents should be discarded as evidence of the camp’s quality. Let’s say a camp has about 700 kids over the course of the summer, and they have 20 positive quotes in their materials or on their website. That means they needed 3% of the kids and families to like the camp and say something. Perhaps all the quotes are not from the last summer (highly probable); which could mean that perhaps only 1% or fewer campers liked the camp a lot. The larger the camp’s capacity, the worse the statistics get. Anecdotal evidence from "satisfied customers" is rarely an indication that any organization achieves what they promise. Would you be satisfied if a doctor told you that a new heart had been tested on 700 people and she has references from eight who love it? First off, the doctor chose the eight to reference. Secondly, eight is not a random, representative sample in that case. This isn’t to say that the camp may not have hundreds or thousands of such happy comments, but they should be taken with a large grain of salt.
Four – Who is working with the kids?
Ask what the camper-to-counselor ratio is in the cabins. How many staff members are there overall, not including kitchen, maintenance, and other non-primary-camper-interacting employees? What is the minimum age for counselors and junior counselors? What is the average age of staff living in the cabins? How many counselors and junior counselors do they have? What are the minimum qualifications and training requirements for the counselors and junior counselors?
Five – Camper and staff behavior
By digging a little deeper, you can find out more about the camp’s philosophy of dealing with behavior problems, and how that philosophy has been put to the test. Camps are usually very safe places, and serious incidents are uncommon. Nonetheless, it is interesting to learn the camp’s preparations and thoughts. Try asking the following questions. What policies and procedures do you have in place to prevent counselor-to-camper or camper-to-camper hazing, fighting, bullying, or other abuse? Could you please send me the training materials you use to educate your staff about these issues? Also, please send me your general philosophy of working with campers’ behavior issues. Were any counselors fired or subjected to disciplinary action over the past three summers? If so, why? What have you done to prevent the type of incidents that led to this firing or disciplinary action from recurring?
Six – Training the staff
Ask to see their staff training schedule. Does it look professional? This document will allow you to examine the focus of camp by seeing where they concentrate their energies during this time period - team building, camp preparation, how to be a counselor, etc. The orientation period should concretely reflect the camp's philosophy. For resident camps, the time frame varies between one to two weeks of training. If you’d like more information about a particular element of it, ask for it, preferably on paper.
Seven – Director(s)
The director(s) sets the philosophy and tone of the camp. While the many other questions noted here will help you learn a lot about the camp, it is especially important to find out more about this crucial person. Try asking the following questions. Tell me about your camping experience. How long have you been director at this camp? What are your qualifications? Are you a full-time camp director or do you do something else during the off-season? Do you attend conferences - local and national - and read Camping Magazine? Tell me something you learned from the last conference and the past issue or two of Camping Magazine that you plan to apply next summer. What was the last issue of Camping Magazine about? On a daily basis, how much time do you spend interacting with campers and staff? In your opinion, what are the five greatest challenges for the camp over the next three years?
Eight – Injuries at camp
Have any campers or staff ever, in the history of the camp, been seriously injured or died? Has the camp had any emergency room visits for campers or staff in the past three years? The answer to that question is probably yes, so ask what they were for. What have you done to prevent these injuries from recurring? Do you keep statistics on the minor and major injuries that occur at camp? The answer to that question should be yes! Ask them to tell you about them, or to send you that list.
Nine – Benefits of camp
Chances are the camp you’re considering wants your camper to get more from the experience than just fun. Activity skills of some kind are very common goals. There are over 50 benefits that I’ve found to be commonly desired by camps, and while a camp may want its campers to gain all of them, this is highly unlikely. Instead, most camps will probably focus on a handful of core strengths they would like to impart.
What is it about camp "_________" (name) that achieves "___________” (benefit/outcome)? You are looking for SPECIFIC actions that are taken to achieve the end - not platitudes and generalities. If the answer sounds like the back of a cereal box, be wary. Does the director think that these outcomes are achieved for all the campers that attend? Is there a type of child who is more likely to benefit at their camp? What does this child look like?
Beyond that, there are perhaps 1% of camps that could answer whether or not campers benefit based in sound social science. This is a rigorous scientific process that few camps are capable of or willing to undergo. In case the camp you are considering has undertaken such a study, questions along these lines follow. Does the camp have any way of really knowing whether the benefits are being achieved? What sort of study has been done, and may I see the results of it? What were all the things studied? How many campers benefit? How much do they benefit? Do the study results show how long the benefits last? Were certain kinds of campers more likely than others to experience a benefit?
Ten – Activities
Are any camping activities mandatory? Which ones? Who supervises these mandatory activities? What precautions are observed before allowing a counselor to lead a potentially risky activity such as wilderness camping, swimming, river rafting, archery, horseback riding, or canoeing? Do campers receive training or orientation before engaging in these activities? What kind? Have any activities been discontinued over the past three summers? If so, which ones and why?
Asking at least parts of the additional ten questions that I have detailed above is going to offer you quite a bit of insight, not only from what the camp personnel say, but by their reaction to your questions and the tone of their answers.
Have a great summer!
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Drop me an e-mail - randall@visionrealization.com
Over five-hundred pages of free, camp-specific knowledge are on my website — visionrealization.com
Click on — Camp Augusta — where I am full-time director. Camp Augusta enjoys a 90%+ camper return rate, 85%+ staff return rate, and is sold out years in advance.
Dr. Randall Grayson has been involved in the camp experience for over two decades. He earned a doctoral degree at Claremont Graduate University, where he specialized in developmental, social, and organizational psychology.
(This post was edited by RandallGrayson on Dec 5, 2007, 2:41 PM)
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