Written by Leigh Coffey, summer day camps manager at the YMCA of Greater Toronto.
Before your kids arrived at camp this week, staff were busy preparing for the summer ahead, which mostly includes staff training.
Our camp directors receive about 10 hours of training with the full time team, on top of another 40 hours of training at a retreat week at YMCA Camp Pine Crest.
Last week marked five full days of on-site training at each of our 28 day camp locations. Thanks to today’s technology, our staff complete four to five hours of online trainings before they even arrive on-site. This way, by the time our day camp staff show up for in-person training, they have a sound knowledge of YMCA operating policies and procedures.
Throughout the week, our Camp Directors, with the support of their senior staff, spent time training our approximately 700 day camp staff to ensure they’re both inspired and equipped with the knowledge to deliver high quality programs where campers have fun and learn new skills in safe and nurturing camp environment.
Training is broken up into different parts, including:
- Building a positive camp community: counsellors learn about our YMCA values bead program
- Emergency procedures: we teach proper procedure around inclement weather and other unplanned incidents
- YMCA Healthy Child Development: we talk about kids' different life stages and show counsellors what age-appropriate programming looks like for different age groups
- Camp wellness: counsellors learn how to keep kids healthy in the heat, how to treat allergic reactions, etc.
- Performance management: counsellors set goals for the camp season
Dedicating 50-100 hours of training may seem a little excessive for a 9-week program, but we believe it supports our staff in ensuring they are prepared an amazing summer with our campers!
You can learn more about YMCA day camps at www.ymcagta.org/daycamps
Have a happy camp season!
