Rogue Camp Volunteer Management: When Old Campers Love Camp Too Much

At the ACA National Conference in Atlanta in 2016, 4-H camp directors from across the country spent a day exploring relevant topics. Nationally, 4-H is one branch of the Extension Services, which includes Master Gardeners and other program areas that rely on volunteers. One common and highly charged topic was how to handle volunteer camp staff who act like they are tenured for life. While almost every camp relies on experienced volunteers, sometimes they need to be reminded that Camp 2017 is not the same as when they were in fourth grade.

The 4-H program mission is to teach subject matter and life skills through an intentional process that helps young people meet key developmental needs. 4-H produces five functionally valued outcomes of competence, confidence, connection, character and caring, and compassion. The vision is for all youth to experience economic and social success in adulthood while making positive contributions to their communities. Camps that are largely run by volunteers have many components of these outcomes.

Volunteer staff need to understand why youth attend 4-H Camp and what makes it unique. 4-H Camp is through cooperative Extension and is crucial to the land-grant university mission, in addition to providing life skills and positive youth development. The 4-H concepts, curriculum, and pledge should be an important part of the camp experience. The intentional methods of 4-H positive youth development need to be explained and incorporated into all staff training, especially for nonprofessionals.

In an article called “Extension Agents as Administrators of Volunteers: Competencies Needed for the Future,” author Barry Boyd noted that Extension faculty, in their role as administrators of volunteers, often lack the competencies to fully manage and utilize this tremendous resource. Boyd’s research identified 33 competencies required by persons leading volunteers. These competencies included skills in the broad constructs of organizational and systems leadership, developing a positive organizational culture, personal skills that will help them in developing effective teams and managing change, and skills in daily management of volunteers (Boyd, 2004).

The 4-H vision is philosophically in line with many youth camps around the world. One challenge is that many adult volunteers are former campers. Their long-term expectations may conflict with your current ideas as the professional camp director. They may derail the train to success.
In an article called “Generating Potential Solutions for Dealing with Problem Volunteers,” authors Fry and Langellotto state that Extension agents are often required to work with challenging volunteers or to problem-solve difficult volunteer scenarios (2013). Sometimes camp directors will have more issues with volunteer staff than they have with campers or parents.

When the 4-H camp directors met at the ACA National Conference, they used their collective experience to examine several real scenarios. With each situation they considered what the individual volunteer’s personal motivation may have been — and whether it aligned with the current mission and vision of the camp.

Challenging Scenario #1: Volunteer Staﬀ Overstep Boundaries

Volunteers may disdain and disagree with the camp director over a policy from ACA or other administrative sources. One example discussed occurred when a 4-H camp received a decree from its university that all participants must have their temperatures taken upon arrival at camp. Valid complaints included the amount of time required to do this task, invasion of privacy, and having to make decisions on who to send home.