Rebels with a cause.

Dear Bob,

What about those staff members who are either former campers or who have worked at our camp before? They are sometimes headstrong, cocky, and adversarial with administration. They cruise through staff week infecting other staff with the notion, "What the administration is saying is okay, but here's how things really work!" How can they be brought back to our side?

Distressed in Durango

Dear Distressed,

Either the same band of young staff is travelling to most of the camps in the United States, or you have had the kind of experience most directors have from time to time. Experience tells us that staff members with the greatest sense of ownership of camp are usually those who are former campers. Unfortunately, they can also be the most resistant to change and the most tenacious about holding on to any underground culture that might exist at camp. An underground culture condones or advocates sneaking away, cutting corners, drinking or other high-risk behavior, and bending camp rules and guidelines.

Draw in underground rebels

Since this behavior is highly predictable, plan ahead. Get rebels to join in. Have your leadership team help identify them early in the preseason, then brainstorm ways to involve these often charismatic people in orientation events.

Have them perform small skits on activity areas, life in the bunk, and the history of camp. They can organize a special sports tournament for staff, a mini color war, or other event. Pull them into the program with specific responsibilities that challenge them to rise to their best while giving you an easy and legitimate way to supervise them.

Involving potential renegades in this way will create the opportunity for you to meet with them as a separate group to discuss important topics, such being a part of the camp community, the camp's values, and the challenges of working with campers. In this way, you harness the spirit and enthusiasm these people bring to camp while beginning to discuss risk-taking behavior among campers and counselors.

Keep staff from going underground

Proactively including young rebel staff in your program invites them to bring their challenges and resistance out in the open, to make it public, where it can be seen, responded to, and contained.

All too often, directors respond to young, challenging, and perhaps seditious staff with a combination of ignoring them and struggling with them. When this happens, the group becomes further disenfranchised, setting up a we/they feeling that the administration mirrors.

A group that feels disavowed will only become more and more secretive and further undermine the administration. I see such a group as a challenge, sometimes serious, sometimes more benign, for administrators to articulate their values and practice constructive confrontation. In other words, getting people to buy in requires including them in the process. It means giving them genuine responsibility accompanied by the tools and support to be successful. It also means having a core group of staff who are on board with your values and can articulate and model them. Modeling might include admitting mistakes publicly when appropriate, respecting curfews and rules about drinking and smoking, and speaking up when other staff break such rules.

Understand risk-taking

Any discussion of staff is not complete without some mention of risk-taking behavior. Risk-taking behavior is one of the least understood aspects of working at camp, yet it has profound implications about what happens there.

Risk taking is a normal part of growing, for children and adults. Whether it is trying a new skill or activity, such as archery or climbing, or more social behavior, such as making a new friend or admitting a mistake to a group of peers, risk taking is an essential part of camp life. In fact, one of the strengths of a good camp program is that it provides many varied opportunities for campers and staff to expand their horizons by participating in healthy, well-supervised healthy risk-taking activities, both social and physical. We need to teach staff, especially the young and restless ones, how to distinguish safe, healthy, smart risks from unsafe, unhealthy, needlessly reckless risks. Trying a new dive off the diving float can be a way to experience a behavior that is medium-to-high risk, but that can be executed safely. Swinging into a lake from a rope in the woods without checking the situation for safety is an example of a medium-to-high risk behavior that is needlessly reckless.

State expectations

When you encounter a staff member who, for whatever reason, cannot abide by the rules, guidelines, or values at camp, you need to switch into your businesslike mode of administration. State, one-on-one with the staff member, your expectations and the consequences of noncompliance. Once these issues are understood, further episodes of undermining the program or breaking the rules need to be dealt with fairly and predictably, even if it means letting a staff member go. I have spoken to many directors who regret holding on to staff for too long, either because they hoped that it would all work out, or they feared being short-handed or inflaming relations with the rest of the staff.

Often, the staff is relieved when directors have the courage to stand up and confront those staff who fail to uphold the rules or maintain safety at camp. As long as there has been a genuine attempt to bring people into the process, have open discussions, give clear expectations, and provide adequate feedback about performance, staff who are reasonable will accept house cleaning as a way of honoring their efforts and values.

Bob Ditter is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in child and adolescent treatment. Camp directors are invited to write to Bob at: Bob Ditter, "In the Trenches," 93 Union St., Ste. 307, Newton, MA 02159 or e-mail: [e-mail], or fax [phone]. Letters should be signed, although requests for confidentiality will be honored. "In the Trenches" is sponsored by American Income Life Insurance.