Information for NDO Facilitators 

Thank you for your interest in ACA's New Director Orientation (NDO) course! 

The New Director Orientation is a seven-hour course (7 CECs) for seasonal or new camp directors, assistant directors, program directors, or persons that have been in other administrative positions and are considering directing a camp. The course covers five critical areas: camp management leadership, risk management, camper behavior, staff training, and staff supervision.

NDO Facilitator's Curriculum and Resources

The NDO curriculum has been updated (February 2018), so be sure to use the most recent version! The Request NDO curriculum link will take you to a form to complete requesting information about you and your inteded use of the contnet.  ACA will then send you a link to be able to access the curricula.

NDO Facilitator Service (job) Description

Experienced NDO facilitators will notice these curriculum changes:

  • A comprehensive NDO PPT that you are welcome to tweak to fit your course
  • Resources for use with your group
  • Significan revision of the Leadership and Supervision lessons
  • Significant revisions to the Risk Management lesson
  • Addition of a lesson on Evaluation and Assessment
  • General updating of the other sections

The process of offering the NDO includes:

  • Facilitators and ACA PD Managers work together to establish the date & get it posted on the ACA Events Calendar
  • ACA will set up the NDO course registration and post it to the events calendar
  • Facilitators will download the revised NDO curriculm elements for review and preparation
  • Participant course evaluations will be completed electronically - post course
  • If being offered through an ACA Affiliate or an approved third party, a completed copy of the royalty worksheet template (Excel) must be returned to ACA, Inc. (Melany Irvin, mirvin@acacamps.org)
  • ACA PD staff will award participants who completed the course 7 continuing education credits (CECs)

Continue the Conversation 

  • Continue the conversation online with ACA Connect
  • Participants and facilitators (new and old) can opt in to the New Director Orientation Community to learn from one another and to share resources

If you have questions, contact:

Use Agreement for ACA NDO materials

Anyone granted access the course materials will need to sign a use agreement.

Please read the following important information regarding the use of the NDO materials. By requesting and acquiring the ACA NDO materials, you are indicating your agreement to the terms of use:

I recognize that the ACA New Director Orientation materials constitute intellectual property of the American Camping Association, Inc. (ACA), and I will not reproduce, forward, use in whole, or part, without written permission from the ACA. Furthermore I agree that should I have an interest in hosting the a course, I will coordinate the offering through and with full approval of my local field/affiliate office of the American Camp Association.

*Hosting Affiliate offices, in exchange for the use of New Director Orientation materials, pay royalty fees, per person at current rate of $45 per ACA member and $55 per non member.

Once you have your NDO curriculum, you will find the facilitator page helpful.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST!!!