As camp gets closer, the amount of time you have to spare dwindles exponentially. So, I'll keep this brief. As a trained social worker and former camp director, during the summer I often serve as on-call mental health consultation for camp leaders across North America. Think of it as having a trusted colleague on standby, as someone who understands both clinical best practices and the realities of camp. When something "big" happens at camp that you weren’t quite trained for,

At the upcoming Tri-State and New England Camp Conferences, I am presenting on the "business of camp." The business of camp is always on my mind. I love working with directors who don't love working on business aspects of camp. Why? I get to see their passion for their camp's mission and the experiences they can provide for kids, which is absolutely something that I share, as a camp founder and former director. But at the end of the day, the bottom line has to work so that d

Does your camp have a decision-making process of what to do, for whom, and when? How did you come up with your process? What factors led to the creation of these policies? Does your camp send a camper home if they are in acute mental health distress? Does your camp try to assess and keep the camper, where possible? To be fair, these are questions that many camps have not yet answered. We'll start by breaking it down simply. For a more detailed analysis, see this blog post fro

Dear Directors, I recently spoke to Immersive1st's Dan Weir about a few things - one of them being camp leadership teams. I have spent a lot of time connecting with directors about this in recent months, and I find that it's top of mind for many. How do we know we have the right positions, both seasonally and year-round? How can we make our wonderful current leadership team members shine even more for us? How can we bring in new team members and/or change job descriptions? Al