Recorded Webinars

This is a webinar designed to equip summer camp staff with essential skills for navigating challenging interactions. Participants delve into effective communication strategies, conflict resolution techniques, and active listening methods tailored for camp environments. Expert facilitators provide practical tools to defuse tension, foster empathy, and promote constructive dialogue, ensuring staff feel confident in addressing sensitive topics with campers, colleagues, and parents. In this webinar attendees gain valuable insights, ultimately enhancing their ability to create inclusive, nurturing camp environments.

Presenters: Chanika Perry and Lance Ozier

CEC's: 1.0

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Join us for an update on the Fair Labor Standards Act white collar exemptions, as well as camp-specific content relating to the 13(a)(3) seasonal exemption.  Do you have questions about the new FLSA “White-Collar” exemption?  How does the new Final Rule affect your camp? Come to this webinar and hear about the issue from a partner in Ice Miller’s Labor and Employment Group.

Presenter: Manolis Boulukos

CEC's: 1.0

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Implementing accessibility best practices allows us to improve the usability of our content including documents. Presentations, and websites for all users. Join us for a three-part series dedicated to helping you make your content and website more accessible and user friendly. Learn about accessibility best practices for creating accessible documents and presentations, and for auditing your website to improve usability for all.

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Most camp parents are wonderful, but at every camp, there are a few who are some degree of difficult. From parents who demand special exceptions to parents who are wholly disengaged from their child's development, it is vital that we as camp professionals take a proactive approach when dealing with any challenging situation with a camp parent. This enjoyable (and yes, funny!) workshop will discuss techniques to help you turn your most difficult parents into loyal promoters of your camp!

Presenter: Sarah Kurtz McKinnon

CEC's: 1.0

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Ever wish someone would filter through the millions of websites and online apps on your behalf, sharing only those that are truly remarkable, time-and money-saving?  Then this is the session for you!  Join marketing expert Jodi Rudick for a guided tour through the overwhelming world of technology.  Learn about the latest sites to help you stay connected and how to take advantage of FREE social networks to build awareness, participation and loyalty for your programs, services and events.

Presenter: Jodi Rudick

CEC's: 1.0

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While this sounds so simple, why is it often so hard?  Community building is what camp is all about.  Yet, all of the ice-breakers and fun games in the world don’t guarantee that staff will be unified. Discover ways to create a cohesive staff community by looking at each subset of your staff group and their unique needs, providing opportunities to connect before camp begins, and fostering continued growth all throughout the season. It’s time to get back to the basics!

Presenter: Kim Aycock

CEC's: 1.0

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Ant colonies have been used throughout history as models of industry. As a collective, ants are efficient, surprisingly intelligent, and are among the very few animals that organize themselves to collectively carry loads far heavier than an individual member of their species. Ants working together have an astonishing ability to mix collective muscle with individual initiative, and can adjust their course and outcomes based on intelligence provided by a single ant joining the effort.

So, imagine harvesting those collective strengths where, instead of gathering food for the colony, there was an army of ants raising money for your camp….

Presenter: Diane Tyrell

CEC's: 1.0

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Today’s parents are supportive and dedicated to their children, but they are also the most anxious and controlling parents in American history. Successful camps have strategies in place for effectively managing parents’ needs and expectations, but what strategies are most effective? This webinar provides evidence-based approaches for managing today’s (over)parents based on what’s working in the camp industry, as well as tips for positive parent interaction.

Presenter: Barry A. Garst, Ph.D.

CEC's: 1.0

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In this follow-up Webinar Chris from Transplaining will share with attendees collective ideas to consider when building trans* inclusive culture and practices applicable to your camp context. We will discuss the topics of: eligibility for programs and/or cabins based on gender identity, navigating conversations with caregivers, considerations for training frontline staff, building an inclusive culture that is based on intersectional justice, addressing conflict that may arise between camp community members regarding gender identity, and how youth voice must be a key component in wayfinding for inclusive practices.

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Camp professionals usually come into their roles because they have talent and passion for working with youth and staff. However, the most successful leaders in our industry combine this passion with keen business sense.  But where to even begin? This webinar will provide foundational knowledge for camp leaders so that they can understand how to leverage business tools to impact kids’ lives.

Presenter: Sarah Kurtz McKinnon

CEC's: 1.0 

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Do you have questions about the new FLSA “White Collar” exemption?  How does the new Final Rule affect your camp?

The American Camp Association hosted a wbinar featuring Emmanuel “Manolis” Boulukos, partner in Ice Miller’s Labor and Employment Group. Manolis represents and advises clients in labor and employment law matters including, federal and state litigation, wage and hour issues, the development of employment policies and practices, as well as conducts extensive wage and hour audits.

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Are you responsible for submitting a budget to a supervisor or Board of Directors? Do terms like accumulated depreciation, fixed assets, accounts payable, accrued basis, cash basis, liabilities, net assets, and cash flow confuse you? They should if you were not an accounting major. This session will cover the basics you need to prepare your budgets and read your financial statements.

Presenter: Russ Link

Russ Link has been the executive director of Camp Olson YMCA (an Independent YMCA Camp) the past 18 years. Camp Olson YMCA is a summer-only camp with an annual operating budget $1.5 million. Camp Olson YMCA is located on 1,350 acres in the heart of lake country in North Central Minnesota. Like many typical camp staff members, Russ spent his summers during college working at a camp. Russ spent these summers enjoying the outdoors at the Wisconsin Lions Camp in central Wisconsin near Stevens Point. It was at camp where he met his wife Jolene.

Russ was drawn to Camp Olson YMCA because of the rich tradition of honoring the environment and its strong emphasis on family values. Russ has worked to preserve over 260 acres of the camp’s property in conservation easements that have provided over $1 million in revenue for the camp. Russ believes that a camp experience is important for every child. “I am who I am because of my camp experiences.” Russ lives at Camp Olson YMCA in Longville, MN, with his beautiful wife Jolene and twin sons, Connor and Micah, who both work at camp during their summers home from college.

This webinar will discuss cultural appropriation and the damage perpetuated by camps with harmful stereotypes. Cheryl will discuss how whiteness permeates organizational and camp actions that reproduce Indigenous erasure and white supremacy. The goal of this webinar is to become familiar with the uncomfortable and to recognize the common and everyday behavior of cultural appropriation that is widespread in camps and many organizations.  

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It goes without saying that camp makes a huge difference in the lives of staff. We also know that staff develop 21st Century skills such as communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity by working at camp. Yet, staff members are often challenged to translate this to a resume that will be attractive to future employers. In this webinar, camp and university professionals come together to share resume preparation tips so you can lead a compelling resume writing workshop this summer—a value-added component to staff development!

Presenters: Kim Aycock, MST and Deb Jordan, Re.D.

CEC's: 1.0

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Every program planning to run in-person for summer 2021 may find their camp playing offense or defense with the media. This session will include an overview of what we learned from summer 2020, how we helped camps that reached out (without naming names), and key takeaways as ACA preps for next summer. Get up-to-date on anticipating crisis, identifying your spokesperson, determining your audiences, and establishing standards for monitoring and receiving notifications surrounding potential crisis. Learn more about responding to media inquiries and how to determine if a situation will require professional help.

Presenter: Kelley Freridge

Successful use of the earned media channel is still a critical component to a strong communications program and the success of managing your reputation during a crisis.

The crisis communications coaching workshop informs membership of the strategic elements in communicating to key stakeholders and the public at large in a controlled manner, moving the business forward through operational emergency and recovery.

The coaching uses a prescriptive approach and focuses on strategic processes to develop or enhancement of new muscle memory. Concepts covered include Aligning Business & Communications Goals, Connecting with the Audience, Four-Part Message Model, and Managing Q&A.

Many camp professionals have a lot of anxiety about running camp in summer 2021. The camp community is surviving by thinking outside the box. Join a panel of day camp professionals who were allowed to run last summer and embraced innovation to run successful day camp programs in summer 2020.

Purpose of the Webinar
Gain insight into day camp operations from a variety of camps that ran in summer 2020 to the broadest group of individuals who may run camp in summer 2021.

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Albert Einstein said it best, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”.  While there are many elements of your marketing execution and internet presence that can be tracked, there are fundamental metrics that every camp needs to focus on to increase enrollment.  Whether you’re completely new or an experienced user of Google Analytics, we’ll show you the essentials to leverage this powerful tool.  This will help you invest your marketing resources in the right places.  You will learn how to maximize return on your efforts based on real data and our extensive experience with other successful camps.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Participants will leave with a better sense of their staffs learning styles.
2. Participants will learn how to best address the timing and nature of their staff training.
3. Participants will leave with at least 7 ways to drastically change their approach to Staff Training to yield a better result.

Presenter: Lee Biear

CEC's: 1.0

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In the past ten years we’ve welcomed tremendous growth in how and why camp professionals use evaluation to support program planning, staff training, marketing, and funding efforts.  The year 2020 promises continued demand for evidence-informed practice, as well as new challenges to gathering useful feedback from campers, staff, and parents.  In this webinar we examine best-practices in camp evaluation from the past and consider how we might use what works to tackle some of the challenges that lay ahead.  We will specifically cover ACA’s Youth Outcomes Battery, Camp Program Quality Assessment, creative approaches to measuring camper and staff outcomes, and a new initiative designed to build networks of camp professionals to support continuous program improvement.

Presenter: Dr. Laurie Browne

CEC's: 1.0

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Summer is almost here and it’s not too late to sign up more campers! Join us as we explore easy to implement last-minute marketing strategies to help sign up new campers and increase retention rate. We will also discuss strategies to prepare marketing assets during the summer to be used next year for recruiting. Don’t miss out on these last-minute families!

Presenter: Blake Sunshine

CEC's: 1.0

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Surveying parents before, during, and after camp programs is one of the most common forms of camp evaluation, yet it is not easy to do well. Some parents are vocal and tell you more than you want to know while others do not complete the survey at all. This webinar will provide some tips to help you ask useful questions and get (lots of) useful responses, all while demonstrating to your parents that you value their voice and participation in your program.

Learning Objectives:

1. By the end of this session, participants will be able to design a survey that provides information they can realistically use to train staff, improve programs, and increase enrollment.
2. By the end of this session, participants will be able to successfully achieve their desired number of survey responses from parents.
3. By the end of this session, participants will be able to foster a culture of feedback and buy-in in their parent community.

Presenter: Dr. Laurie Browne

CEC's: 1.0

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"Because of Camp... I have a better relationship with my phone." Said no one ever. We love camp because of the relationships we build there. So, what would camp look like if the staff committed to working without their phones? Not even using them during a break! But only using them on officially scheduled days and nights off. Is that crazy? Come learn how one summer camp discovered that disconnecting from our devices made us more connected than we could have imagined… Fully Connected!

Presenter: Shawn Marler

CEC's: 1.0

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Ever had staff tell you they want more feedback and then when you give it, especially if it’s negative, their feelings get hurt? CampCode podcast hosts Gab, Beth, and Ruby tackle one of the hardest and most important skills as a staff manager: giving feedback. This session will share techniques to create a culture of feedback and show how to facilitate opportunities for a healthy exchange of feedback among your camp team.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Learn ways to offer real opportunities for feedback throughout a summer staff team through a variety of media.
2. Practice giving hard feedback to staff members and learn how to give feedback to staff the way they want to receive it.
3. Practice establishing rapport and learn how to give feedback in a way that participants feel cared for rather than criticized.
4. They will learn how to train staff on the feedback process during staff training.

Presenters: Ruby Compton, Beth Allison, and Gabrielle Raill

CEC's: 1.0

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Summer staff can be a challenge to find and establishing camp positions as university practicums or internships can help fill the gap as a competitive option for students needing real world experience. Most universities have specific requirements for agencies and organizations to be approved as practicum and internship sites. In addition, interns have specific academic requirements (“homework”) they must complete during their practicum or internship experience. Join us for a discussion on tips and tricks about how to set up your camp staffing needs to meet academic requirements for practicums and internships.

EARNER OUTCOMES:

1. Explain the differences between practicum and internship experiences
2. Describe the typical academic requirements for students serving as practicum students and interns
3. Create a list of potential projects (outside of ‘regular’ camp duties) to serve as culminating projects for students
4. Establish their camp as a potential practicum and/or internship site for a variety of universities

Presenters: Kim Aycock and Deb Jordan

CEC's: 1.0

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Before we get to the cabin assignments, the bathroom, managing disclosure, creating inclusive forms, and even pronouns, we need to investigate the urgent nature of creating safe(r) spaces for transgender youth. In this session, we will do an overview of terms (and not get stuck there!), and then start identifying microaggressions in your traditions, and resources that you can use to speak with your board, parents, and stakeholders about creating inclusive policies that will make kids of all genders feel more comfortable in your camp’s environment.

Presenter: Chris Rehs-Dupin; Pronouns: he/him/his

Chris Rehs-Dupin spent the majority of his professional career (18 years) in youth development in the outdoors before transferring to a management position with the City of Columbus.  Chris is a passionate speaker, trainer, and educator.  His crowing camp achievement was acting as a member of the ACA Illinois Mid-states Camp Conference leadership team in 2019.  

Chris is an active member of his church community as part of the social justice ministry- including LGTBQ+ advocacy, homeless outreach, and New American ministries.  The church even allows him to mow the grass- although he has run over things he shouldn’t have more than once.  Chris is a father of two children who are the center of his universe and his consistent reason for trying to make the world a better place.  When he is not working he enjoys running, maple syrup production, gardening, and wine making.

ACA’s Youth Outcomes Battery is a set of surveys designed specifically for camp professionals to use to measure camper outcomes. Join us in this webinar to learn about this easy and accessible tool and learn to use it to design a custom-made camper survey to use at your camp. We will also share additional resources for program evaluation designed to support outcomes measurement.

Presenters: Laurie Browne and Mary Rogers

CEC's: 1.0

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Unanswered emails. Requests (demands) for time-off. Over-involved parents. What’s the matter with young people today? Most likely nothing! We have more in common with this cohort of staff than one might think; their needs are just expressed differently. We have an opportunity to communicate that we are in touch with the times and yet have a handle on timeless wisdom. Recruit staff for next summer (and beyond) by demonstrating that we understand the perspectives of those we hope to hire without compromising important vision, values, and views. Ideas gathered from several Think-Tank sessions at regional ACA events will be shared.    

LEARNER OUTCOMES:
Recognize globally and individually the view on leadership and communication styles (and often barriers) to connecting with and hiring staff today

1. Compare needs of today’s staff with our own needs to see they are similar but just expressed differently
2. Formulate concrete “to do” ideas and strategies to successfully recruit staff for next summer and beyond

Presenter: Kim Aycock and Deb Jordan

A healthy part of children’s emotional development includes occasional bouts of feeling down or stressed, but how do you know when it’s serious? Depression and anxiety are two of the most common childhood mental health disorders. Since you’re not a therapist, how should you respond? Learn practical, supportive, and ethical ways to help children cope and build resiliency.

LEARNER OUTCOMES:

1.  Define disorders, behaviors, and reasonable expectations.
2.  Respond with appropriate activities and communication.
3.  Explore cognitive-behavioral techniques to increase coping and resiliency.

Presenter: Susan Fee, M.Ed.

CEC's: 1.5

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Learn new skills and a fresh outlook about grant funding opportunities.

Grant funding can play an important role in helping nonprofit camps withstand the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. Whether you are seeking grant funding to support pandemic-related community services offered by your camp or if you need resources to help your camp sustain operations and/or ramp up for the coming summer, this webinar is for you. It’s designed specifically for camp leaders and will help take the mystery and intimidation out of the “grant” process. Participants will learn actionable steps and strategies to successfully secure grant funding from corporate and private foundations. We will cover topics such as defining your project, knowing where to find grant opportunities, understanding the funder’s approach, completing the application (proposal), and following through after the award.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:

• Grant-seeking beginners who want to learn how to research and develop winning proposals for corporate and private foundations.
• Experienced grant writers who want to get a fresh look at the current funding environment and are looking to polish existing skills and techniques.

LEARNER OUTCOMES:

By the end of the webinar, participants will:

• Understand what makes a project fundable,
• Be able to identify strong funding sources for their camps,
• Know what questions to ask and what to look for when evaluating a funding opportunity, and
• Feel empowered to complete grant applications.

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It's time to start re-thinking the traditional ways in which we view staff training. This session will be full of new and innovative ideas to change the dynamic (and timing) of your staff training. The ultimate goal of this exciting, high energy workshop is to meet the shifting needs of a new generation that is your workforce.

LEARNER OUTCOMES:
Participants will leave with a better sense of their staffs learning styles.

1. Participants will learn how to best address the timing and nature of their staff training.
2. Participants will leave with at least 7 ways to drastically change their approach to Staff Training to yield a better result.

Presenter: Dave Malter

CEC's: 1.0

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The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others are forcing the country to reconcile with the injustices that plague our systems. As camp professionals, it’s our responsibility to educate campers about systemic racism. It’s also our job to give campers a place to talk about how it affects their lives. Whether your camp is already committed to creating an environment that’s conducive to meaningful and productive conversations about race, or just getting started, this webinar has something for everyone!   

Presenters: Chanika Perry and Lance Ozier

CEC's: 1.0

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This session, in partnership with Teaching Matters, continues the conversation started by ACA in 2020, which recognizes that camps, along with the rest of the country, must confront the injustices that plague our systems. As camp professionals, it’s our responsibility to educate campers and staff about systemic racism. We cannot begin having those conversations without exploring our own racial literacy. This session will introduce practical activities to help you talk about race, confront systemic racism & engage in collective awareness and action at your camp. 

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Storytelling is a deeply human experience, we’ve been telling each other stories for thousands of years. Our stories have the power to bring people together, to shape history, to educate, and drive meaningful connections.

Join our panel of marketing professionals as we discuss storytelling as a content marketing strategy to share the story of summer 2020. This webinar is for camp programs that ran in-person, virtual camp, family camp, implemented a camp-in-a-box program, or simply pivoted to planning for summer 2021.

Working together we will build the bridge to summer 2021 using storytelling as a vehicle to connect with campers and parents. Your story matters, we’re here to help.

PRESENTER(S) 

• Kelley Freridge
• Micah Hart
• Lindsay Malone 

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Join seasoned camp professionals and suppliers for an engaging session addressing some of the most challenging business topics impacting camp related to COVID-19.  While no one has all the answers needed, this is an opportunity to address key issues at a practical level. 

Topics include:

• insurance
• staffing
• communications with camper families and
• connecting with government agencies.