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The role of youth involvement: building camps that care about kids--fourth in a series of four articles.

Article Excerpt
"The fact that campers are happy and active does not necessarily mean that the camp is achieving important objectives. Children often have superficial objectives which make them happy. We all want our campers to be happy and reasonably active, but we cannot judge the effectiveness of the camping experience on that alone ... it is not a complete criterion of success (Richard S. Doty, The Character Dimension of Camping, 1960)."

Camps pride themselves in happy campers, good return rates of campers and staff, and outstanding facilities. Doty, in reporting on research done in the 1950s, challenged readers to understand the three dimensions of camping:

Dimension I--What is at camp-equipment, site, people

Dimension II--Experiences people have at camp-activities, group living

Dimension III--What effect the other two dimensions have on the camper

Directors undoubtedly concur with Doty that campers may or may not have positive, developmentally-appropriate experiences simply because program and facilities are provided. What matters is what happens to the camper.

For this reason, in the new millennium, ACA pursued a systematic program of research and evaluation of the camp experience. The Program Improvement Project (PIP) is the latest of ACA's ground-breaking efforts. Results of this project have been included in the three previous issues of Camping Magazine and have reported on significant findings about youth perceptions of the camp experience. More details of this study can be found in the booklet Innovations: Improving Youth Experiences in Summer Programs (ACA, 2006 and on the Web at www.ACAcamps.org/research).

The Community Action Framework for Youth Development (Gambone, Klem, and Connell, 2002) is the central framework that puts into perspective what is needed to help young people develop into adults who are economically self-sufficient, able to sustain healthy family relationships, and contribute to their community. If camps want these accepted outcomes, research shows that our youth must be provided with four critical supports and opportunities:

* Multiple supportive relationships with adults and peers

* Physical and emotional safety

* Challenging and engaging activities and learning experiences

* Meaningful opportunities for involvement and...

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