For Parents, Guardians, and/or Registrants

As a Parent, What can you Expect for Your Camper?

At Camp Don Lee we take very seriously our responsibilities to children and youth. 

We seek to build and maintain an environment of adventure and calculated risk to provide for our campers the greatest opportunities for personal growth of self confidence and living skill progressions possible.  We seek to build a community of trust that operates in a framework of Christian practices.  We seek to lift up virtues such as truth, honesty, dependability, cooperation, and care for others and the environment.  We seek to provide an opportunity for campers to experience the presence of a creator God, to experience relationship with a wide range of other campers, a variety of ideas, and a cross section of activities designed for enjoyment and skill development.  We seek to help nurture campers, motivated by love, into lifestyles of care for the common good.

Camp Don Lee seeks to provide an environment for children and youth where there is a sense of security, love, encouragement, and genuine concern for others.  Camp Don Lee has accepted the accreditation standards of operations of the American Camping Association and the best practices standards of those professionals in the field of camping and those of United Methodist Church camping.  Camp Don Lee has embraced the philosophy of recommended practices of the Safe Sanctuaries program for children and youth. 

Along these lines, as a parent you can expect:

• All staff are hired after careful recruitment, screening and complete reference and criminal and drug background checks.  We are making every possible effort to screen those persons who will work directly with your child.

• We have established and trained our staff in practices of appropriate interpersonal boundaries.  We want our staff to be clear about appropriate behaviors.  Our staff must be attentive to appropriate dress codes, appropriate use of language, and appropriate demonstrations of affection and encouragement.  Camp Don Lee staff is trained to remember they are the adult and it is their responsibility to behave professionally.

• We have reviewed and re-affirmed our policy that there will be at least two adult staff present at all times during any program event or activity.  We are working hard to establish this practice at all times in the camp community.

• All staff members have been trained and certified in basic first aid and CPR annually.

• All staff members have attended an orientation in which they were informed of policies for the prevention of the abuse of children and youth; appropriate steps to follow for the reporting an incident of abuse of any child (at camp or back home); and details of state law regarding the definitions of child/youth abuse and the requirements of reporting abuse when it is discovered.

• Camp Don Lee has a policy that all paid staff and volunteers who work with youth are at least three years older than the children and youth they are responsible to lead or care for.  And we have a policy that we have no workers responsible in leading or caring for children/youth who are under the age of eighteen.

• Camp Don Lee has established a policy that all counseling sessions and any one-on-one “talks” with children or youth should be conducted with the “open door”.  That means at camp an adult can go off to talk with a youth but should stay in sight of others the entire time.

• Camp Don Lee has established a policy of separate sleeping rooms for adults and campers.  When that is not possible the two adult rule should apply.

• Camp Don Lee has established  staff positions for extra supervision of staff 24 hours per day to insure compliance to these and other policies.