It’s the hottest spot in camp — the waterfront. Campers love it because of the unique activities it offers. Yet the waterfront is also a high-risk area for safety concerns. 

This is an adapted excerpt from Waterfront Management for Camp and Recreation Settings, Third Edition by Cathy Scheder (Trellis Press, 2026).

From minor injuries to distressed swimmers or worse-case scenario a camper or staff member goes down in deep water, you need to be prepared for it all. No camp is immune to emergencies. The better prepared and trained your team is, the better they’ll react when disaster strikes. 

A great place to start is with Emergency Action Plans (EAPs) — plans that address how to respond to specific, potential incidents or accidents and the role different individuals play in responding to each emergency scenario. In some instances, government organizations, like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, require these plans.

The first question you need to ask is “What possible incidents or accidents could happen on our waterfront?” Start by writing a list of different scenarios that could potentially occur. Even if you think the likelihood of something happening is really slim, write a plan for it anyhow. The goal with EAPs is to have a plan in place, which enables you to be ready to respond immediately and efficiently to a particular situation. Depending on the activities you provide and the environments within which you hold them (if you have multiple aquatic locations), the specificity of the EAP you draft may be affected.

Where programs get into trouble is when they respond with no plan in place. The second consideration for each scenario is to ask yourself, “How will we respond to each of these incidents?” You want to consider responses if the scenario happens close to your main program shore as well as further away. For example, if you run a waterski program and a skier falls and is complaining about back pain, is the process to get them to care different if you are 100 feet from your program’s shoreline or 500 yards from the closest shoreline with a road? The short answer is yes.

Before you even begin to develop a plan, contact your local emergency medical services (EMS) and have a conversation with them about the roles they can and can’t perform. Some EMS response units won’t take over care until the victim is brought onto dry land. As such, it is an excellent idea to develop your EAPs in tandem with your EMS, so you are both on the same page. EAPs should include the following information:

• The details you need to gather from the response team on scene, including:
  • The nature of the emergency
  • The number of individuals involved
  • The status of any injury or illness
  • Any additional support they need

• How and when to contact emergency officials, including who makes the call (Sometimes, that’s dependent on the organization and how you want to communicate with emergency personnel.)
• The communication plan during and after the incident (This factor should include a strategy for limiting people from posting to social media. With the staff you hire, you can control this situation more than you can with the public who might be witnessing it.)
• A media response plan to the incident
• Responsibilities of different staff (For example, if your lifeguards respond to an emergency, but your program nurse or local EMS arrives on scene, have a plan for transitioning care to the higher trained individual for that environment. If the victim is still in the water, your lifeguards may have a higher training level for responding in the water than your healthcare staff who aren’t certified.)
• Location of the nearest public roads to the incident (Your main program shore may not be the closest location to get EMS to the victim or vice versa. Identifying different points of extraction to dry land from areas on your lake and knowing those specific locations so they can be communicated to EMS is critical.)

Your policies and EAPs are only good if, in fact, you and your staff are implementing them and enforcing the rules.

Write It, Implement It, Rehearse It, Enforce It (WIRE)

One of the biggest liabilities a program can face is having a policy (written or otherwise) in place, not following it, and an accident or worse happens. In that regard, the following four simple steps can keep this a cyclical and routine process.

Step 1: Write It

Write your policies and EAPs down. Even though your organization may have a policy or process in place that they have been using for years, writing down the policy will allow everyone to understand exactly what the process is for specific situations. Written policies oftentimes may also meet accreditation standards, as well as state licensing requirements. Furthermore, having a written policy allows for a stronger evaluation with regards to whether the policy is still effective or needs adjustments. Written policies should not only be shared with those staff who may be involved directly with the response team or the aquatic activity but also with all the whole staff. Adding it to your staff handbook is a universal way to ensure everyone gets a copy of it. To minimize confusion about what everyone’s role is in a particular scenario everyone should know what to expect, even if they do not work directly in these areas.

Step 2: Implement It

Policies are only good if, in fact, they are implemented. Having a written policy but not following what it says can lead to a huge liability gap and cause potential injury. Putting policy into practice through implementation is core to having a successful program on the water (or any area of your program for that matter).

Step 3: Rehearse It

You can implement every policy and EAP you have, but if you and your staff aren’t rehearsing policies and procedures you may not respond as effectively as is needed at the time it’s needed most. Rehearsing routinely (not once or twice a season, but every week) will allow the staff responsible to respond efficiently, effectively, and appropriately when the time comes.

Step 4: Enforce It

On occasion, it is really easy to let rules slide, especially if you know the individuals who are either participating in the activity or even supervising it. Enforcing rules, even if they aren’t popular, will keep you aligned with the written policies and in the event of an injury or accident, or worse, will demonstrate that the staff followed the rules established by the organization. Policies and EAPs are core to how your organization operates, as well as critical to running an effective waterfront program.

Having EAPs for a variety of possible incidents will help you prepare and plan for an effective response to different situations. Establishing a WIRE for your policies and EAPs will provide an effective system to maintain as safe an environment as you can, but be prepared to respond if needed.

This is an adapted excerpt from Waterfront Management for Camp and Recreation Settings, Third Edition by Cathy Scheder (Trellis Press, 2026).

Cathy Scheder, EdD, is associate dean for outreach and extension in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She began her camp experience as a waterfront director and was a lifeguard for over 20 years. The first 16 years of her career were spent directing camps and working for the American Camp Association as an educational program manager. She lives in Stevens Point, WI.