|
|
 |
by Linda Ebner Erceg, R.N., M.S., P.H.N.
With the advent of another summer camp season comes the quest to review
and update various processes. One of these pertains
to your camp’s
health and safety profile. The purpose of this
article is to bring both new and redefined information
to your attention, information that may help your
campers and staff have a healthier camp experience while also expanding
the repertoire of resources at your fingertips.
ACA Health Forms
Updated
over a year ago and available online to American
Camp Association (ACA) members through the ACA
Bookstore, www.ACAcamps.org/bookstore, the number of health forms has
expanded beyond the basic Health History form. To begin with, there
are separate health history forms for campers and staff. This reflects
the difference in a camp’s responsibility
to these groups of people. As clients, the focus
of camper health care is to enable them to return
to the program in which they’ve enrolled.
Health care for staff focuses on returning them
to work, to the job for which they’ve been hired. Both groups
certainly get good health care but by providing
a staff health history form that comes from an
occupational health perspective, a camp more clearly communicates the
focus for staff. There are other health forms available online, such
as one for adult campers, one requesting a camper’s
asthma plan, and another for short-term campers.
Some of these can be downloaded for customization,
thus improving a camp’s ability
to focus on information germane to its needs. The
forms were developed by ACA with the help of both
the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Association of Camp Nurses.
Crisis Response Planning
From a different perspective, one shaped by
the country’s preparedness
initiative, comes the necessity for camp professionals
to participate in the broader U.S. preparedness planning process. There
has been marked progress within U.S. society in preparedness. Yet many
camp emergency response plans have failed to integrate this within
their own plans. Should a crisis beyond the border
of camp occur, a camp might find itself vying for access to local resources
with other entities. Consequently, there’s
a need for camps to interface much more intentionally
with the broader community’s response plans. A tool called the
National Incident Management System (NIMS) is available
to do this. Originally developed as a corrective
response to the problems that surfaced when responding to the 9-11 crisis,
NIMS is a system that gives all responders — fire,
law enforcement, EMS, and the general public — a framework for
working together. NIMS training teaches this framework
and provides a common language so responders from
all disciplines can effectively interface. Camp
professionals can complete an interactive Web-based introduction to
NIMS through FEMA’s Emergency
Management Institute at www.training.fema.gov/
EMIWeb/IS/IS100a.asp. Another option may be to take a locally provided
training (ask your local law enforcement office about this).
Having
basic knowledge about NIMS enables a camp professional
to talk with local and regional preparedness planners
in an effort to (a) educate external planners to camp needs and (b)
provide direction to what support a camp might bring to the table. Yes,
this means getting more active with a camp’s local
community, but this activity may make a significant
difference between having something “imposed” on a camp
during a crisis rather than integrated into camp
systems. There’s
training beyond NIMS IS-100 for those with greater
interest or need. The courses available for independent
study are available at www.training.fema.gov/IS/NIMS.asp.
If your camp has basic preparedness in hand, consider using Table
Top exercises to hone the skills of your key staff.
Table Top exercises allow one to simulate a crisis
and move staff through the process of responding.
The scenario is typically followed by debriefing,
the process that identifies both what went well and where improvements
are needed. To get started with running your own Table Top, visit Web
sites such as “Table
Tops: Three Simply Scenarios,” a
Web site provided to the business community at
www.csoonline.com/article/221132/Tabletop_Exercises_Three_Sample_Scenarios.
Other options are available by putting "Table
Top Scenarios" into your favorite browser.
While NIMS brings the
camp world more in line with U.S. preparedness,
revision of books such as Connie Coutellier’s Risk
and Crisis Management Planning (2008) focus more specifically
on the camp world. This manual, a combination of written information
and workbook format, includes updated content on topics such as bullying
and a host of worksheets that reflect information learned from recent
camp crises. Supported by a CD of the worksheets, Coutellier’s
book facilitates work done on this topic by an individual or a camp
leadership team.
Crisis
Communications Weathering the Storm: A Handbook for Camps and Other
Youth Programs by Marla Coleman
and Jessica Coleman is another resource. This new handbook available
for purchase at www.ACAcamps.org/bookstore, provides the necessary steps
and the resources to create a communications system for your camp, along
with training tips to help you put your plans in action.
General Camp Health and Wellness
Camps affiliated with the Healthy Camp research
already know of ACA’s
e-Institute, an online learning option that currently
delivers four health-related courses, one about communicable
disease control; another about knife safety (particularly
knives used in food preparation); a third about wearing appropriate
footwear; and a final program specific to use of protective equipment.
More courses will be developed as data indicates need, so it’s
worth bookmarking this page and continuing to monitor it (www.ACAcamps.org/einstitute/healthycamp/).
In addition, the Healthy Camp Study provides participating camps with
an annual summary of the camp’s injuryillness profile. While allowing
the camp to compare itself to national trends, this report more importantly
enables a camp to probe the factors that surround its own injury-illness
profile. For example, some camps have discovered that more injuries
occur during discrete times of day. Because the camp knows what’s
going on during that time, the camp can specifically look at context
and make a determination regarding improvement and track the impact
of any changes through future summative reports.
Camps, both ACA accredited
and nonaccredited, may still enroll in the study;
information about doing so is online at www.ACAcamps.org/research/enhance/
reduce_injury_illness.php. A group of camp and affiliated professionals
annually examines the national dataset to discover what is going well
as well as what should be addressed. The study recently introduced examination
of fatigue, a component that anecdotally appears
to impact health in many ways and will be more intentionally assessed
during the summer of 2009.
Other resources pertaining to a camp’s general health
and wellness include the following:
- A
poster, What Do I Need to Stay Healthy at Camp? — This brightly
colored, camper-friendly, 24” x 40” poster reinforces
health promotion messages for self-care, appropriate footwear,
sun and insect protection, hydration, good nutrition,
and other topics. It’s
available from the Association of Camp Nurses
online at www.campnurse.org/store/acn.html.
- The video, Why Don’t We Do It In Our Sleeves? — Used
in a Healthy Camp module, the video is available online (to purchase and/or
to view) at www.coughsafe.com and will change the way campers and staff
deal with their coughs and sneezes. This same Web site provides access
to another video, Soap in the City, a video that teaches the importance
of hand washing through the story of Typhoid Mary.
- SunWise — developed
by the EPA, this program targets school-aged
children (K-8) and teaches sun protective behaviors. A host of resources
is available online at www.epa.gov/sunwise/index.html, including the
option for a camp to sign up for a free resource kit. This program,
which is also available in Spanish, would make a great contribution
to a camp’s environmental and/or camp
craft program.
Updates for the Health Center
As campers and staff travel
the world, they may present with unusual symptoms
at the health center. Since health center staff
often focus on the things they know, they may neglect asking about where
the person has traveled and/or lived during the past academic year.
This question should be built into the assessment process. Follow it
up by accessing the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Web site, specifically the Traveler’s Health
site (www.cdc.
gov/travel/default.aspx). There’s a search option
on this page that allows one to insert a country and then see comments
about relevant health information.
This CDC resource was complemented
by the recent revision of the American Public Health
Association’s
Control of Communicable Diseases Manual (D. Heymann [Ed], 2008). Covering
topics from the common cold and conjunctivitis to Ebola, this book tells
how a particular disease is transmitted, how to confine an outbreak, how
to treat diagnosed people, how long the period of communicability lasts,
and more. When wondering how to manage a head lice situation or Norwalk
virus outbreak, this reference is invaluable.
The second edition of Erceg and Pravda’s The
Basics of Camp Nursing is also available. With more sample forms, content specific to resident
and day camps, and updated content, the book complements ACA standards
while describing general camp nursing processes. The authors also inserted
stronger messages about how the camp nurse works effectively with camp
administrators and some of the things to consider when the nurse’s
child is a camper.
Keeping Current
This article hits just some of the
updates that will impact Summer 2009. Other things
have not been addressed. Topics such as anaplasmosis,
emerging information about mental and emotional health, and shallow
water blackout have not been addressed, yet these are topics that today’s camp professional needs to know. Consequently,
consider how you get information. To maintain your currency, are you
effectively looped into appropriate knowledge centers and resources?
Publications such as ACA’s The CampLine and the Association of
Camp Nurses CompassPoint, listserv groups like the one for camp professionals,
and subscribing to alerts from your State’s Department of Health
all help. Take time to assess your information profile; adapt it to
meet your needs.
Originally published in the 2009 May/June
issue of Camping Magazine.
|
