Background: Summer camps engage millions of youth in enrichment opportunities during the summertime while employing a substantial young adult workforce to provide high-quality programs and services to camp participants. Workplace fatigue has been implicated in camp-related injury and illness events, yet few studies have targeted fatigue among camp employees. Purpose: This study aimed to better understand how fatigue impacted employee performance as well as strategies for reducing the negative impacts of fatigue within camp settings. Methodology/Approach: Focus groups were conducted with camp health care providers and directors, and their responses were analyzed using directed content analysis. The analysis process was guided by sensitizing concepts from the literature. Findings/Conclusions: Emergent themes suggested that camp-related fatigue is conceptualized as a construct of time, types, and causes; is a distinct experience leading to setting-specific outcomes; is managed using administrative and peer supports; and is sometimes perceived in positive ways. Implications: This exploratory study highlighted the unique challenges associated with working in a camp setting and the potential development of fatigue as a starting point informing future research. It suggests that future research should include a broader study population, including frontline staff, as well as possible quantitative measures.
Background As the COVID‐19 pandemic emerged in the United States in the spring and summer of 2020, many organizations serving children and youth immediately faced significant operational and healthcare challenges. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance for the safe operation of youth programmes emphasized the importance of non‐pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), yet few studies have examined NPI usage in summer programmes such as camps. Method This sequential explanatory mixed‐methods study explored the utilization of NPIs among camp healthcare providers who completed an online questionnaire followed by one‐on‐one interviews. Results The study findings indicated that camps consistently used a core set of NPIs to maintain and protect the health of camp participants, including screening, cohorting, hand hygiene, sanitizing practices, ventilation and physical distancing. The study findings further identified specific practices of camp healthcare providers that made NPI utilization possible, as exemplified in the emergent themes of wellness promotion; health awareness and modelling; and camp health service mobilization. Conclusion NPI usage benchmarks from this study, as well as effective practices for NPI utilization, can inform the application of NPIs and other health‐promoting practices across diverse formal and informal youth settings.
The COVID-19 pandemic completely upended the camping industry, posing unique and significant challenges to youth summer engagement experiences, with many camps choosing not to operate in the summer of 2020. These canceled programs resulted in staff layoffs and loss of revenue. Some state requirements necessitated camp closures, while other camps closed due to uncertainty about the ability to provide a safe, healthy camp experience that retained the essence of summer camp. The small portion of camps that did open were forced to be cre-ative in how they offered programs. Some camps chose to run limited in-person programs, some offered family camps for family units, while others transitioned to virtual camp experiences. For these camps that did run in some capacity, several national organizations were able to gather data regarding operational challenges and benefits. Using document analysis, this project examined research findings from four national camp organizations. This cross-organizational analysis high-lights the experiences of camps offering in-person summer programs and services in implementing nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission in 2020. Camps used a variety of NPIs that involved both personal responsibility and community cooperation to create a camp experience that was socially distant and as sanitary as possible. This study also examines the experiences of camps offering virtual programs and services as a means to connect with individuals and support socialization needs of youth. These virtual programs varied widely, but all provided youth the opportunity to connect with like-minded campers and staff to have community building experiences despite isolation. In the context of many COVID-19 challenges, this study identifies positive benefits associated with operating camp in the summer of 2020. These unexpected positive impacts encompass health center operations, food service, programmatic changes, changes to the structure of camper units, and a shifting focus toward mental, emo-tional, and social health. Many of these positive outcomes are perceived by camp administrators as beneficial changes that will likely remain after the pandemic and continue to impact the camping industry for the foreseeable future.
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