ACA Home Forums Ethics Question

Allow me to pose a hypothetical. Suppose a camp director wanted to run a 'lost camper' drill and he/she wanted the camp counselors to take it very seriously. As such he/she decided to run the drill without letting counselors know beforehand. Also, suppose the director pretended that kids were actually missing.

Would this be legal to do? Would this be against professional ethics to do? Is it okay for a director to make his/her staff believe that actual campers were missing?

Thanks in advance...

I don't know much as far as the legal aspect of it, but I would think it is unethical, and unfair to the staff.

In addition, I think it could backfire pretty big, such as the staff thinking later a real situation was a drill (the whole crying wolf problem) and not taking it seriously. I think it would also really kill your chances of restaffing on following years. I wouldn't want to work at a camp that would do something like that. It could also have legal ramifications, if one of the unknowing staff were, for instance, to call the authorities. Actually, if you want to get really techinical, people could probably sue for emotional trauma. It's illegal to yell fire in a movie theater, because your freedom of speech rights end when you effect others like that, and someone who would yell it would be responsible for anybody who got injured in the stampede out the doors. Likewise, I would assume, the camp director would be responsible for anyone who got hurt in the drill, and that could be applied to mental pain as well.

Besides, that's just messed up. If you can't trust your staff to take something seriously, then there are some major problems there anyway.

I would not advise you at all to run a fake drill like that. It really does not matter as far as legal, but the impact on the staff. If my CD did that, most of my respect would vanish. You make the staff extremely worried. They would probably call the police, and then that would not be a good situation. Your staff would be stressed and anger at the CD. Not a good idea at all. Run a fake one with them knowing.

We had one of those drills. Our CD got a camper to go to her and she whisked her away and gave her ice cream and waited to see what happened. We initiated the lost camper drill thinking it was real and pretty quickly the girl was found. Everything went really smoothly and it didn't cause too much panic. People were too concerned with looking after the other campers and keeping everyone calm and just getting on with finding the camper. It never occurred to me that there might be a problem with doing something like this.

As far from the prespective of an administraor and authority, it does seem a good idea. It would test whether or not everything would work well. However, if you look at the point of the counselors, I think it would not be as good as from that prespective. The counselors are scared and worried about what is happening. Also, if something like that happens again, the counselors might wonder whether it is a drill or an actual emergency. I think i would tell the counselors that there might be one this week. That might be a good midpoint, just not telling them when.

I think that looking back on it we were told that sometime we would have a drill of one of our procedures but it wasn't anything mroe than that. We also had a tornado one and had to get everyone into the shelters. It was a nightmare trying to keep the campers calm when one of them saw a mouse.

Yes, I did not really think about it from the campers. If the campers heard of the drill (which would happen), then it might cause panic. And then the campers would tell their parents, etc. It is not a good situation at all.

As a member of Ad-staff last year on camp we had had a policy in place on how to handle emergency situations. The Ad-staff team were known as Crisis team A and the area directors were known as Crisis team B and each team had specific duties to do if one of the alarms were sounded.
At the weekly UL meeting we stated that there would be an LBD (lost bather drill) at some point that week. Only the Waterfront director and CD knew when it would actually happen.
On the first night of each session, the unit staff explained to campers about the alarms and what they should do if they hear one. They explained that it was very similar to having fire drills at school where we need to practice what do in case of an emergency.
That way when the alarms sounded both the campers and staff remained calm and followed proceedure.

Being international, i'm not sure of the legalities that you are refering to but one of the standards for ACA accreditation is that the is a policy in place and that all staff and campers are aware of it and know what to do whether it is a drill or the real thing. It also states that drills should be carried out to ensure that good practice is being carried out.

In four summers of camp, I have never known any campers to get upset and we did have to have a real alarm as a girl had gone missing (she wandered off because she wanted to go for a walk on her own but didn't tell anyone!!). The staff realised that the alarm was real but still responded in a mature and responsible way not alerting to their campers that the drill was real.

I personally feel that staff should be warned that there will be drills throughout the summer but not specifically when.
Campers presume every alarm is a drill and just like at school respond accordingly.
The main point is how we as staff members respond! If we act cool, calm and collected there is no reason why your campers should panic.

If the staff members know that a drill isn't real they propably wouldn't put as much effort into carrying it out. I know that at school when you knew that a fire alarm was just a drill you just wandered out and talked and really didn't make much effort. Obviously you would try harder somewhere like camp but you can only really see how well an emergency protocol works by actually carrying it out.
I didn't mean when I posted before that the campers were all panicked about the situation. I was just commenting that there was mass hysteria due to seeing a mouse rather than the fact that we were doing a tornado drill.

We fully inform our staff that during the summer we will be practising all of our drills at least twice. We also inform cameprs that we will be having drills (on the first night) so they are prepared also.

Our staff take all of our drills seriously as we don't differentiate between what is real and what is practise. The staff value the practise and we are all thankful that we haven't had to use them for a real emergency!

We run our lost camper drill twice during staff training. The first time we all start from our "go to" place and practice the drill and the second time we are told the genral time frame it will happen but not when it will happen. After those two times, we do not practice it. It's so important to go threw these drills. A few years ago we did have a run away and since we were prepaired we were able to search threw our camp 3 times in 20 min. before we called the police. The eventually found the girl on our neighbors property.

As far as missing swimmer drill, we split up into 4 teams and spend 2 days learning what our team is saposed to do. We throw old milk jugs in the water for the staff to find and time the search also. 2 days after this each staff member is assigned to a place to camp... they stay at their place untill they hear our air horn (what we use to tell that their is a water search). Later that day at about dusk, we run the search at night too. At the begining of each session we practice this search and let the campers watch and instruct them that if a real search was to occur they are to sit on their assigned benches with there backs to the lake. This way they are not compelled to look at the lake and have the possiblitiy of seeing a body being draged out of the water.

I personaly think it is very important to practice searches so staff can get the job done quickly and correctly and would have no problem if this was to be done.

I think drills are appropriate during camp. You want people to feel prepared in case of an emergency, and also you want them to be able to stay calm. You want them to be able to go through the steps automatically. the only way to achieve this is to practice.

A good way to prepare the campers (because you don't want them flipping out) is to let them know that just the way they have fire drills at school, sometimes we do drills like that at camp...be it a fire drill, missing campers, distressed swimmer, etc. If they know ahead of time of the possibility, then when the time comes they probably will be able to calmly follow the instructions that are given them (and, they will mirror the staff...if the staff is calm yet serious, they will be OK. If hte staff is panicked and out of control, it will be a bad situation).

At my camp, we usually do a distressed swimmer drill about once a week, with campers in the pool. It takes less than 5 minutes to go through the process (of course, since its a drill, we leave out the "911" step).

We've also done fire drills. The camp director was usually kind enough to look at everyone's unit schedule to find a time when no units were scheduled for horse time, swimming, or showers. So we weren't pulling people off of horses or they weren't going throught the drill wrapped up in a towel. usually right before a cookout dinner seemed to be a good time for a fire drill. Or within 5 minutes of dismissing from a meal (they haven't gone too far yet).

I remember one time there was a missing camper drill. It didn't turn out so good, because the staff member who realized the girls were missing did not want to report it to the camp director, and so if it had been an actual missing camper, valuable time would have been lost. Also, when that staff member realized it was a drill and that the campers were with the camp director, she went ballistic. although the funny thing is that when the camp director tried to "lure" one girl away with the promise of a popsicle, the girl said she couldn't go without her buddy (!) so it turned into 2 missing campers (she brought her buddy along). So at least we had drilled into her head the importance of having a buddy, but apparently we didn't do such a good job of teaching her to stay with her group.

In the past, we've asked 1 or 2 campers to "hide" during fire drills. We have told the campers where to go, usually the stall in a bathroom or something. Generally these are places where the counselors "should" look, but sometimes skip.

Typically we'd then send the counselors back out to find the missing camper, if he or she hadn't been spotted before, and the camper would be found quickly thereafter.

Never, once, did a counselor protest this as an unethical practice. If anything, this makes our counselors take their responsibilities more seriously in the event of an emergency drill. So long as you don't put a camper in a place where he or she will never be found, I personally think that this is reasonable.

Great feedback!

I think it is totally ethical to pose as a real situation. My strongest argument for this is the realization of it actually happening. There are psychological barriers in running announced drills. I believe it is impotent to have your staff feel that emotion and if possible debrief the feelings and how important it is to maintain the order of the camp.

An example of this could be a lost swimmer drill. The raw emotion that could come over the staff in a real drill will make sure they take each drill with the utmost responsibility. With always knowing of the practice drill, if something did arise that the staff would have already had that feeling once of "OHHH MYYY GODDDDDDDD!". Not that the feeling of that will go away ever in any situation but will hopefully contribute to their actions in maintaining order if a real situation did arise.

Also with that, I believe the aquatics staff, especially young and inexperienced, doesn't totally comprehend the true responsibility of their job. This is a general statement of coarse but I have seen many examples of this and they must be corrected right away. Some younger people get certified and think their responsibilities are getting a tan. Can you tell i'm a waterfront director? :-)

With that said, I would say a real drill can be very emotionally draining. If you do put one in place I think it would be best for early in the season and definitely debrief it as soon as you can. This will set a standard for the season.

Might I add this is a great topic of discussion!

so what if at first you announce that a camper is missing, and get all of the staff's reactions and feelings. Then announce that it is actually a drill, but tell them to react like this is a real deal. maybe give them a time limit and if they do not find the camper in the set time, or something goes wrong, that they will have to do it again. End the drill on a good note with a coupon for more time-off one day, pizza, etc.