Section 1: Roots and Rationale

Section 1: Roots and Rationale

Section 1:

Roots and Rationale

Why does the Salvation Army include youth camping in its ministry? What is there about camping that supports the mission of the Salvation Army?

The Salvation Army Mission Statement

The Salvation Army, an International movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.

The Mission of Salvation Army Camping

The mission of Salvation Army camping is to serve the needs of campers: physical, social and spiritual. For the physical needs, our aim is to help campers develop good health habits in cleanliness, proper rest, balanced diet, exercise, and care of body. To meet the social needs, the camp provides an opportunity for each camper to contribute to and receive from a group living experience. The aim is to help campers make their own right decisions, stimulate creativity, and foster independence. The fact that The Salvation Army is a Christian organization makes it possible for its camping program to integrate concern for the spiritual dimension of life. We believe God, His Word and what it teaches, and a pattern of living exemplified by Jesus Christ are the basis for life enrichment. These purposes are achieved through carefully selected staff, well planned programs, and the highest standards of health and safety.

The Goals of Salvation Army Camping

1. To promote an awareness of God, His love, and through the love of Jesus Christ, to aid toward spiritual growth and knowledge of basic human values.

1. To give children, youth, and adults a fun filled, healthful, safe, educational, and inspirational experience in the out-of-doors.

1. To help develop an understanding, appreciation, and a sense of stewardship in the out-of-doors, for the natural environment, and for all living creatures.

1. To help individuals grow in understanding themselves and each other, and especially for children to experience relationships with staff as caring adults and to offer opportunity for people of varied cultures to develop compassion and love for each other.

1. To provide a loving and supportive environment where families can learn to cope with and solve their problems.

1. To facilitate creative self-expression through worship, song, work, play, physical activity, and the development of new skills.

1. To allow each person to participate in planning programs and in establishing limits and responsibility for the safety and welfare of all.

1. To assist in developing an appreciation for the wonder and joy of the miracles of everyday living.

A Brief History of Youth Camping

Religious camp meetings have been popular since pre-Revolutionary times. One encampment by evangelists in Kentucky drew over 25,000 participants in 1801. The first organized youth camp experience, however, seems to have taken place when Connecticut schoolmaster Frederick William Gunn closed the 1861 school term by marching his male students some 40 miles to the shore of Long Island Sound. There they played out the drama of military-type camping (the Civil War had begun that April). Days were spent lounging in tents, discussing the latest news from the front, splashing in the surf, and telling tales around the campfire. These encampments, which became known as Gunnery Camp, continued well past the war’s end in 1865 until 1879.

Over the next few decades, organized camping in the United States was pursued by various teachers, doctors, and social reformists. Most of these advocates were striving to prove various theories about youth, the benefits of outdoor living, and a return to the “simple life.” A BrynMawrCollege professor named Susan Kingsbury, for example, set out to prove that teenage girls could actually live in a communal setting for two summer months with little adult interference. Almost all camps at these times were flavored with Native American lore and traditions, popularized by authors and illustrators such as naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton (who would later cofound the Boy Scouts of America).

By the close of the 19th century, many churches, social welfare agencies, and municipalities had established outdoor retreat centers to combat the increasingly urban society brought on by the Industrial Age and waves of city-bound immigrants. The success of these first camps was judged by such dubious measures as how much weight a camper gained (3 to 5 pounds was average) or how much English the immigrant campers learned. Most staff members at the time were professional educators or social workers, earnestly running the summer camp with their particular agency’s mission in mind.

The earliest recorded camp program operated by the Salvation Army occurred just prior to the start of the 20th century when Bramwell Booth conducted a Corps Cadet camp in the London, England area. Later camps were designed to meet the needs of underprivileged children in London’s industrial slums, and the success of the camps were often gauged by how much weight a child gained during the course of the week.

Later, other agencies such as the Camp Fire Girls, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Fresh Air Funds, churches, and labor unions established their own program based upon their own agendas. YWCA camps, for example, began with the mission being to offer young female shop clerks and seamstresses a week’s retreat from the pallor of city life.

Because of existing racial barriers, these early camps did not include children of color. Camping for minority children, however, began to grow in the 1920’s when community organizer Alberta Kline, a disciple of Mary McLeod Bethune, took small groups of girls from Harlem on overnight tent excursions to Staten Island. Encouraged by the success of this and similar projects, the New York City Mission Society, a Protestant charity, purchased 650 acres of upstate New York property and founded CampMinisink. The camp housed 400 children at a time, and singers Eartha Kitt and Diahann Carroll are among its alumnae. In the South, the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA also ran camps specifically for black children.

Since the 1970’s, some 2,500 sleepaway camps, many of them nonprofit, have closed. Many were located on lakefront property which soared in value as urban sprawl and the age of the commuter pushed the suburbs of large cities into previously undeveloped tracts of rural land. Liability insurance and increasing costs of staffing and maintenance have also proved prohibitive. Many well-to-do families chose to send their children to more specialized camps featuring computers and water skiing rather than those offering nature lore and Cherokee legends. Other camps have grown out of necessity to serve special populations (the blind, deaf, and emotionally or developmentally challenged).

To fill the void of diminishing resident camps for the underprivileged, day camps have grown by over 90 percent in urban areas over the past three decades. Many of the children served by those centers may venture out to sleepaway camps for a week at a time, and in most cases the entire cost is subsidized by religious and charitable organizations.

Rather than attempting to keep pace with the trends of society by purchasing motorized watercraft, laser tag suits and a karaoke machine for every cabin, most nonprofit camps are returning to their roots. Successful programs still entertain and challenge children by offering such traditional activities as hiking, outdoor cooking, Indian lore, swimming, canoeing, softball, nature walks, fishing, and evening campfires. For many camps, their most exciting foray into the twentieth century is a new ropes course or a wide screen television for rainy days.

Along with changes in camp program has come a change in camp staffing. The number of potential summer staff ages 18 to 24 declined since the peak of 30 million in the early 1980's to approximately 25 million at the turn of the century. This age group will begin growing and continue to grow to reach 30 million again by 2010. The majority of the present 500,000 camp staffers are high school and college students. Few teachers “on holiday” are drawn by the comparably low pay of summer camp when summer school and tutoring jobs pay from $25 to $50 an hour. Camps have begun international recruitment to increase both their camp staff size and diversity. Currently over 25,000 of the summer camp staff are international staff on J-1 visas placed through international placement organizations.

Presently, there are approximately 8,500 camps, of which 5,500 are resident camps. These camps serve some six million campers, more than a million of which are physically, emotionally, or economically challenged. Approximately 6,200 of the existing 8,500 camps are run by social service agencies and nonprofit groups.

The Salvation Army in the Eastern Territory currently operates thirteen camps providing camping experiences for the physically and emotionally challenged, the inner city youth, the young musician, the troubled teen, the single parent, the recovering addict, the young person in scouting activities, the senior citizen, and the family. These thirteen camps employ approximately 900 teens and young adults each summer, and their collective operating budgets exceed one million dollars. Regardless of societal trends, Salvation Army camps in the 21st century remain responsive to the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs of children, teens, and adults.

Rationale for Staff Training

If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain.

If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees.

If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.

Chinese proverb

Each year the SalvationArmyEasternTerritory invests huge amounts of time, money, and resources into its summer youth camps. Such an investment demands responsible stewardship. Through carefully planned and executed orientation and training, the camp director ensures that all camp staff will demonstrate motivation, competence, effectiveness, and accountability.

Motivation

Poor planning, supervision, or programming will ultimately lead to poor morale. Poor morale will, in turn, adversely affect staff relationships with campers. By helping staff members see the meaning in their work, morale is raised and motivation is increased. The Orientation process defines the mission, and therefore the meaning, of the camping experience.

Competence

Discrete instruction in the individual’s role and responsibilities is the primary goal of staff orientation. The camp cannot run efficiently, nor fulfill its mission, unless every staff member understands and carries out his or her personal responsibilities. Ongoing evaluation and in-service training guarantee that staff will perform competently in their positions.

Effectiveness

A step beyond simple competence is effectiveness. Effective training increases the likelihood of effective performance. Effective training, however, is by no means easily accomplished; it is ongoing, and must be adaptive to daily trial and error. For staff to ever be truly effective, they must understand the mission of the camp, buy into the vision of the camp director, and place the welfare of the camp and camper ahead of their own.

Accountability

A well devised organizational chart will ensure that each staff member knows his or her place within the camp chain of command. The camp director, however, is ultimately responsible for the actions of all staff members, regardless of how removed they are on that chain of command. The Orientation and training process allows the camp director to clearly articulate the roles and responsibilities of all staff members.

Staff, for example, must be held accountable to the personnel policies and practices (or procedures) established by the camp. These policies not only define a staff member’s role in risk management, but are a part of the requirements which enable each Salvation Army camp to be accredited by the American Camping Association. Therefore, failure by a camp director to enforce these personnel policies could lead to a loss of accreditation as well as potential legal action.

Staff accountability extends to the site and to the campers themselves. In this litigious age, it is imperative that staff be well versed in all aspects of site risk management, as well as applicable state and local regulatory codes. Initial and ongoing training and supervision are necessary in order to avoid both intentional and unintentional neglect of responsibilities. Camp directors must comply with and maintain records on a wide variety of laws and regulations including Child Labor, OSHA (programs for hazardous materials, blood borne pathogens), EEOC, ADA, Civil Rights, Fair Labor, Criminal Records Act, Food and Drug Laws, Copyright Laws, Child Protection Act, etc. State sections of the ACA and state environmental, education, and social services agencies can provide the director with up-to-date codes relevant to the camping industry. These, in turn, must be communicated to the camp staff during the staff Orientation and training sessions.

The Salvation Army Eastern Territory CampStaff Orientation and Training Manual

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