Campers who didn't want to go to camp

[CAMPFRIEND]

You right Echolaker. Parents just don't see it that way!

[Dave]

The bolded statement surprised me.

As counselors were you not given a "meds" briefing before the campers' arrival refering to all issues ?

We sat in the directors' house, at stupid o'clock, with the rest of the staff in our group and discussed past behavioral history at camp, medical conditions and requirements, and even were told whether they wore braces.

It's an essential information flow that allows us to meet the campers' needs, as a staff group we'd also then know that one of us would have to accompany Camper X to the Health Center each morning before breakfast to get his meds, and could make contingencys for coverage arrangements.
Well the parents do have to fill out a number of forms that tell all about the child's history (as well as family history, stuff in their life, etc.). If our kids have to take meds we do know about that so we can take them to the nurse, but we don't find out about their conditions unless the parents tell us on meet-the-counselors day. The only time we find out about the conditions of a kid is if they get an advocate.

This page contains links to all the forms that have to be filled out for a camper to register at our camp: http://katzjcc.org/camps/Camper-Registration.asp. As you can see, they have to fill out a medication form, a health form, and an intake form (personal life basically: recent deaths, a move, etc.).

[camper]

we have confidentials, which is basically what echolaker described. you meet w/the counselors in the age group, the grouphead, my mom, and the directors and go through every single kid and their history in camp, who they get along with and who they don't, situations that might arise w/each particular kid, situations at home that will affect how you deal w/them, anything out of the ordinary that happened to that kid in the past year, and medical issues. most of the time, our parents do the opposite of at dave's camp and call a million times until they are POSITIVE their child's medical issues are known. of course, we occasionally have those whose doctors thought it would be good to take them off of meds, or parents who refuse to believe that their child has a social/medical problem, but most of the time the parents are very specific.

it surprises me that there are lots of parents who won't do that, though.

[EchoLaker]

we have confidentials, which is basically what echolaker described. you meet w/the counselors in the age group, the grouphead, my mom, and the directors and go through every single kid and their history in camp, who they get along with and who they don't, situations that might arise w/each particular kid, situations at home that will affect how you deal w/them, anything out of the ordinary that happened to that kid in the past year, and medical issues. most of the time, our parents do the opposite of at dave's camp and call a million times until they are POSITIVE their child's medical issues are known. of course, we occasionally have those whose doctors thought it would be good to take them off of meds, or parents who refuse to believe that their child has a social/medical problem, but most of the time the parents are very specific.

it surprises me that there are lots of parents who won't do that, though.


Thank you camper, for that more thorough run through of what we do when we find out what group we are placed in (normally a day comparable to what tribal break does for the campers!).

The confidentials are a tedious process, but are essential.

Our parents are especially good, and me being in the office and the mailroom during pre-camp, we also were always being checked up on to make sure that the Meds had arrived - often in the large FedEx / UPS shipments we were getting.

Parents were always phoning to make sure that they'd told the Head Counselors each detail, and that they couldn't remember quite what they'd put on the files !

[camper]

yeah same, they call all through the summer w/stuff like that.