Program Quality Goes to Summer Camp, Where It Belongs

Think about the last time you had a quality customer service experience — was it at a store? On vacation? Over the phone with a customer service representative? And what followed from that experience? For most people, a quality customer service experience results in some kind of measurable behavior — purchasing more, telling others, maybe a Yelp review. So, when we think about quality in the context of being a customer, we have a pretty clear idea of what quality is (something that makes us want more) and what it isn’t (a big bummer).

It is this clear link between a quality experience and behavior that has made quality a growing point of focus outside the commercial realm, notably in spaces where practitioners work toward specific outcomes among the people they serve. This is especially true in out-of-school time programs. The relation between specific staff practices, activities, policies and program climate and youth outcomes has been well-established, which means that programs adopting these practices are more likely to promote such youth outcomes as responsibility, teamwork and relationships skills than those that do not.

Summer camp programs are similar to most OST contexts, but have a unique set of needs related to program quality. Day camps, for example, are often short in duration, which means less time for the development of youth outcomes. What’s more, day and overnight camps alike rely on seasonal, inexperienced staff to work as camp counselors and activity leaders. These camps face increasing challenges to hiring qualified staff and training them sufficiently before the start of the summer season. Some camps are moving toward short-term employment, hiring staff for two weeks at a camp, making it even more important that frontline staff have clear, easy to understand ways to promote quality in their work with campers.

2 free tools

This can be tricky, though, when program quality is fundamentally about how a camper experiences staff, activities, policies and the overall climate at camp. Program quality experts call this point of service quality: Quality is determined by the camper and their individual interactions with these aspects of the program, because, if their interactions are positive, they will be more likely to achieve the program outcomes. Luckily, program quality research provides a clear framework for what camp staff and administrations need to do to promote quality in their one-on-one interactions with campers, as well as through activities, policies and camp climate.

The American Camp Association, for example, has two free, easy to use research-informed tools designed for use at camp. The Camp Program Quality Assessment-Short Form (CPQA) outlines specific ways camps can promote quality through eight dimensions: staff friendliness and circulation, emotional safety, support for belonging, high expectations and good challenge, active and cooperative learning, camper voice, planning and reflection, and nature. As a tool for staff training, monitoring and reflection, the CPQA-Short Form is an excellent resource for camps that want to focus more intentionally on program quality.

The Camp Program Quality Staff Checklist is a second tool that might provide an ever more accessible approach to program quality improvement. This tool is a simple checklist frontline and administrative staff can use for quick, on-the-go observations during camp activities and unstructured time (like meals or free time). Because it is built on the CPQA-Short Form framework, it can also be used in conjunction with that tool. Want to see just how simple this tool can be?

How to use checklist

Here are just a few ways you can use the Staff Checklist before, during and after a summer camp season:

• Share the checklist with staff before the start of training, or at the very beginning. Ask them to share with a partner (or in a journal) what on the list will come most naturally for them and what might be challenging. Brainstorm in small groups ways to support one another with the items on the list they might struggle with.
• Assign chunks of the checklist to small groups and ask them to create a role-playing scenario that includes all the elements on that portion of the list. Have the audience use the checklist to identify when they see these items during the skit.
• Pair returning staff members with new staff members and give them time and space for a one-on-one conversation. Ask the returning staff members to share their experience with the list items at camp and ask them to offer tips and tricks to new staff members for promoting quality when interacting with campers.
• Break staff into small groups and have them use the checklist to conduct an audit of the major chunks for a typical camp day — what does quality look like during morning activities? What does it look like at lunch? During pick-up? Ask the small groups to generate recommendations for improving quality in these chunks (make sure they include both structured activity time and informal time, like meals), as well as the barriers to quality throughout the day.
• Break staff into quality assessment teams (devise a better title than that, please please please). Have these teams practice assessing actual activities using the checklist — check when something is observed, make notes when something does not happen — and then assign them time during the summer to walk around with the checklist and observe activities and informal time. Give them a clipboard so they can take good notes and be sure to remind your entire staff team frequently and often that quality is about learning and every staff person can learn something from having their peers observe them.
• Here’s a crazy idea: Ask campers! Use the items on the checklist as conversation starters with campers or even in a survey. Did staff at this camp use your name today? Did you feel welcome when you joined a new activity for the first time? Ask staff to review what they learn from campers and compare that to what they think they are doing and what they could be doing to improve.

Get staff buy-in

Program quality improvement is not always easy, at least not at first. At the heart of program quality are two important assumptions that can make a shift to program quality assessment challenging, especially among camp programs that have a lot of staff turnover and limited time for staff training. The first of these assumptions is that program quality is a process, not an outcome. This means that all programs, regardless of their size or strength, can improve their program quality, and all this requires continuous monitoring and program improvement efforts over time.

The second is that program quality is a largely internal process, meaning a camp measures its improvement against its own baseline instead of against an external benchmark. What’s more, this benchmark can be (like in the case of the CPQA-Short Form) qualitative in nature instead of a number or score against which to measure improvement. The key to success in both these areas is staff buy-in at all levels, as well as a commitment to organizational learning throughout the ups and downs of the continuous program improvement process.

Camp professionals are busy, busy, busy, which can make the complex, ongoing nature of continuous program improvement seem very daunting. Some camps prefer to focus on outcomes because measuring camper outcomes results in clearly interpreted data, and data that parents, community partners and funders like to see. Given the many and unpredictable demands a camp director faces, it is easy to think that program quality assessment sounds nice, but it’s just not a priority.

In reality, though, it is not as simple as outcomes versus program quality: They work hand-in-hand, whether you choose to measure one or the other or both.

And measuring both might be easier than you think, especially when we recognize that program quality is actually something that camp professionals have more control over than camper outcomes. Each individual camper has a unique set of needs, values and background experiences, which can make predicting the outcomes they will gain from the camp experience tricky. Program quality, on the other hand, is something camps can work toward through intentional program design, staff training, policies and continuous assessment.

Program quality is as much a factor at camp as it is in any other OST setting. As a context of positive youth development, camps represent numerous opportunities to promote quality at the point of service; namely through camper-staff interactions, activities, policies and camp climate. But camps also face added challenges to program quality, which are likely to increase as camps continue to expand the number of youth they serve and the variety of programs through which they serve them. Given its robust research base, camp program quality is a concept and tool that will likely endure these challenges and changes, ensuring all camps promote positive outcomes among the youth they serve.

Laurie Browne, Ph.D., is the director of research at the American Camp Association, where her primary responsibilities include translating research to practice and engaging camps in meaningful evaluation. She is a former day camp director and currently lives in Salt Lake City with her family.