https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/place-share-investing-professional-development

For my camp, the ACA national conference (this year in Dallas, Texas) is always the highlight of our winter. Those of us who are experienced (please note that I am avoiding the word “old”) can get...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/because-i-worked-camp

Now that the summer has come to a close, camp directors are inevitably thinking about the staff they want to invite back next season. If we as directors have created a strong camp community, one that...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/youth-objects-or-partners-advancing-opportunities-camper-leadership-decision-making

Disenfranchised by Design? Nearly 40 percent of ten- to eighteen-year-olds report insufficient levels of involvement in camp (ACA 2006). That statistic surprised most camp...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/determining-competency-essentials-interviewing

"What you have to do is get them talking in such a way that they are unguarded. It could be anything they happen to be into, like their favorite baseball team or a dream they have about doing...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/reclaiming-conversation-interview-sherry-turkle

Sherry Turkle, PhD, is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT; and the founder and current...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/grab-teenage-window-opportunity

The camp experience provides an outstanding opportunity for personal growth. The adolescent brain, which is undergoing tremendous physical and neurological development, can benefit greatly from the...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/pranks-or-projects-how-make-last-weeks-camp-your-best

In late July 2014, I sat on my bed, alone for the first time all day, reeking of garbage and motor oil, and listening to rain pummel the tin roof. Satisfied I’d done my duties for the night, I had...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/staying-out-point-struggle

Scene 1: Tabatha, one of your five-year-old day campers, is going through her fussy-eating routine with you at lunchtime again. What happens is now so familiar to you that you’re...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/impact-camp-experiences-social-skills-happiness

With depression, anxiety, and addiction rates high among adolescents (Keyes, 2006), and many youth engaged in relational aggression and other damaging social practices like bullying, there is clearly...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/noticing-deficit-disorder-how-camp-can-restore-art-seeing-world

We are in the midst of an epidemic of visual impairment no medical doctor can fix — but which camps might cure. Back in the `60s, artist, researcher, and psychologist Rudolf Arnheim (1969) lamented...