ACA Home Forums Transition from Resident to Day Camping

I have recently transitioned from staff member/seasonal program director of a resident camp to a position in municipal recreation where one of my responsibilities is to serve as director of a day camp. One of the things that I noticed is that it is harder to have a consistent program (i.e. traditions, etc) in the day camp and that our program feels more like a babysitting service. Parents drop their kids off and pick them up whenever they want during the day, which keeps the kids from getting the full benefit of what we're trying to do.

I'm also seeing that my staff didn't form the comraderie or have the "buy-in" to the program that I took for granted in res. camp. I know this mostly had to do with the fact that they weren't isolated from "the real world" as much as residential staffs are, but I also had a problem with their personal lives overflowing into work because they would stay out late at night and just call in sick the next day or call and ask if they could just come in later. I don't think they ever understood the importance of what they were doing. Any help on ways that I can address these issues in my planning and staff training for next year?

try more team-building activities for staff during orientation
more after camp acitivites for staff... games, competions, staff olympics. sometimes making the staff into an artificial community helps restore some of what is lost but not having the staff actually reside at camp...

as for campers...
stress the importance of the full camp day experience to parents..?
devise and follow a highly regimented process for parents who need to pick up kids early..?

I agree completely with EpicEngima. It is a lot harder at a day camp to have both traditions and respect on all ends.

Staff: Resident camp truly allows for that bond. And to be honest, sometimes, I think it is really hard for that same strength to be present during day camp. However, I would have a lot more team building activities. Also, I would try to set up some over-night actitivites or events, if possible. Go camping as a group, sleep over in one of the houses, go to dinner and stay over somewhere to sleep, backpack, etc. Anything for them to spend the night together and bond and see each other more. Possibily, extending pre-camp would work well for that. It would allow a greater length of time. I knew personally that by the length of ONE WEEK for RESIDENT camp we were not compeltely bonded.


Campers: If the staff push the traditions, the campers will too. Make it imperative to the staff that they do the traditions, etc. As well as the parents, just make sure you tell them many times the importance of the acitivites, etc.

I remember being in a similar situation a few years ago. I grew up in a resident camp and then made the transition from a head counselor to running the day camp program here. I stress teambuilding and games all throughout training and spend a lot of time talking about the importance of what we do. I went to a session at a conference that had a real good activity of listing the problems of the world then relating the skills that are needed to solve those problems to skills used at camp. The staff are usually receptive to it, but I know I get fired up every time I teach it. Shoot me an email and I can give you details and some more ideas.

jack.harvey@seaworld.com