Tri-State

The Psychosocial Cascade: When One Camper's Sparks Light a Group Fire
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Room 302
It starts with one camper’s impulsive outburst or social misstep. Friction ripples through the group: there are eye rolls, teasing, exclusion, and, before long, low-level bullying. Staff do what they can, but they aren’t effective in quelling the drama or the behaviors. Left unchecked, this “psychosocial cascade” drains staff energy, heightens tension, and destabilizes the group dynamic. Leadership is frustrated with staff, staff are frustrated with campers and leadership, and oh yes, here come the parents who can’t understand what went wrong and definitely blame someone else’s kiddo, your staff, and you! Join Emily as we confidently address this frustrating situation, breaking down why these dynamics unfold so quickly, then turning to what staff can do to prevent escalation and rebuild group connections. You’ll leave with strategies to help you check the sparks, equip staff to constructively address all campers’ needs, and navigate the often-tricky parent conversations that follow.

From Hire to Higher Retention: Building a Staff Experience that Works
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Room 415
Returning staff are the heart of a thriving camp. They know your culture, connect with campers and families, and grow into leadership roles year after year. But how do you keep them coming back? We can all agree it is not the paycheck. Drawing on Mid Island Day Camp’s own staff retention journey, this session explores practical strategies and actionable steps to enhance staff engagement and satisfaction. We will take a deep dive into what’s working, what’s holding you back, and the practices you might already be using that are more important than you realize. With a few small tweaks, you can make your camp the hot place to work this summer and for years to come.

Move, Laugh, Connect: Ten Staff Orientation Activities that Work
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Room 201
The best orientations balance learning and laughter. In this interactive workshop, you’ll take part in ten activities that help staff connect, internalize camp values, and feel ready for summer. Come ready to play, reflect, and bring fresh ideas back to your team.

From Bored to Bought In: How to Train Staff Who Actually Care
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00
Let’s be honest. Most staff training sessions are boring. You have a ton to cover, and here’s the truth: no matter how perfectly you deliver the important stuff, if it’s boring, your staff are going to suck. Engaged training equals engaged staff equals happy kids.
This session is all about fixing that. We will focus on one thing: making training so engaging that staff cannot tune out. You will move, laugh, and practice activities you can steal for your own camp. You will see how to take the topics you already have to teach and make them land. Our job is not to pile on more content. Our job is to tap into what staff already care about and make the important stuff stick.
This will not feel like a lecture. It will feel like camp.

Should You Even Send That Email? Parent Communication in the Tough Moments
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Room 310
We’ve all had that moment, hovering over “send” or debating a phone call. This interactive session explores how to engage families when concerns arise about behavior, safety, or expectations. Learn from a camp public relations expert as Jeff discusses real-world scenarios. Be ready to bring your questions to the session to get real-time answers! Through relatable scenarios, you’ll learn how to communicate clearly, preserve relationships, and keep parents on your team—even when conversations get tough.

The Campfire Effect: What Camp Teaches Us About How Humans Thrive
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00
What if the traditions of camp life reveal how humans are meant to live, learn, and connect? This session explores how the rhythms of camp naturally balance key brain chemicals – dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, and cortisol – to create happier, more resilient children and staff. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, and decades of camp experience, participants will examine how communal living, shared rituals, play, and face-to-face connection foster deep belonging and personal growth. The session will also highlight lessons camps can share with schools, families, and workplaces about designing environments that promote well-being, purpose, and human connection.

Unique Camp Superpowers: Maximizing How Camp Grows Great People
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00
Join us to learn Michael’s new, creative “theory of everything” to describe in a fresh, exciting way, exactly how we can use the highly practical, fundamental elements of camp that make it a uniquely powerful tool for change. And of course, this comes with Michael’s trademark “tons of immediately usable examples” approach. These are the specific, terrific tools for your most world-changing summer ever. Boost the way we keep the most powerful promise of the camp experience: making sure that we are using camp for its greatest and most marketable purpose. Michael, the author of the bestselling “Intentional Camp: Putting More Muscle in the Mission of Character & Youth Development,” will show a laser-like focus on mission, demonstrating both new and essential ways to train, motivate, supervise, support, and coach every member of our team to use our fun and engaging camp activities to build confidence, caring, cooperation, respect, responsibility, and much more.

Jump Rope Made Fun & EASY!
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00
Participants will uncover the secret sauce for breaking down jump rope skills, building up campers’ confidence with slick progressions, and rolling out fun games that keep the energy high and the kids jumping for joy! We’ll zero in on single rope skills and games, perfect for all ages and skill levels, making every jump a blast!

Preventing Camper-to-Camper Abuse: A Scenario-Based Roadmap for Training and Response
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00
Dealing with an allegation of abuse in camp is every director’s worst-case scenario, and when the alleged abuser is another camper, the complexity multiplies. Camper-to-camper abuse is one of the most challenging and least understood issues camps face today, requiring nuanced prevention strategies, staff training, and a camp-wide culture of awareness and accountability.
This session will guide participants through a scenario-based, multi-step framework for both preventing and responding to camper-to-camper abuse. Using realistic examples drawn from camp life, we will explore how early identification of boundary-testing behaviors, effective supervision, and clear communication can dramatically reduce risk. Participants will learn how to implement staff training that moves beyond policy review to create confident, proactive counselors who know what to look for, how to intervene, and how to escalate concerns.

Color War!
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00
This is the mother-load. The Big-Kahuna. The Big Whopper. The Grand-Daddy of them all! We all participated in Color War. But this is the one you’ve been waiting for. Walk away with a 92-page document on how to run Color War, from start to finish. Take away hundreds of ideas on how to run your Color War and how to make your Color War better than ever. There are plenty of ways to run it, and we are going to show them all to you!

Evaluation Strategies that Speak to Gen-Z
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Room 421
This generation of staff members have different needs than those of generations past, so why are we still using the same tired strategies to properly evaluate their performance? This session will challenge participants to reimagine what staff evaluations can look like by better understanding the needs of our Gen-Z staff members. In this session we will discuss frameworks to develop evaluations that are rooted in individual goal setting, that celebrate growth and skill development, and that offer support where staff are lacking. This session will offer practical strategies for reimagining staff evaluations that will lead to an improved staff experience and help to increase staff retention.

How Thoughtful AI Use Strengthens Camp's Core Mission
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Room 304
AI is changing how families find, evaluate, and choose camps, and the pace isn’t slowing down. This session gives you practical, experience-backed guidance on building AI policies, adopting tools safely, and making the operational changes worth your time right now.
We’ll also break down the bigger shifts ahead: why traditional SEO is losing ground, what GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) means for your camp’s visibility, and how generative technology will shape family expectations before they ever reach your website.

The "Day Camp Pod" Roundtable
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Room 404
Come on out to share day camp best practices with each other. Topics will be based on conversations and feedback from this season’s Day Camp Podcast episodes, including customer service, staffing, operations, weather, buses, programming, special events, and more! Let’s get in the weeds and share!

Technology & Operations at Camp
2026-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Room 313
Behind every smooth camp day is a hundred moving parts: bunks, activities, meals, staff breaks, and last-minute changes. In this session, Eyal Abadi, founder of Campify, shares practical strategies for streamlining camp operations using automation and AI. Attendees will learn how to automate parts of their job and increase their own efficiency through non-technical tools (such as Zapier, ChatGPT Custom Agents and other useful tools), all pre-built tools which will be distributed freely after the session. The session also includes a hands-on DIY component, giving participants the chance to implement these ideas at their own camps and walk away with actionable solutions ready to use. Bring your laptop!

Camp is Intersectional: Are Your Staff Training Sessions Meeting the Moment?
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 410
We all want to ensure that our camp team is equipped to handle anything that comes their way during the camp season. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility training is imperative for fostering both safe and brave spaces for campers and for your team. We are experiencing a challenging world where the perpetual gloom and doom of the news brings challenges many may not, and cannot, understand. This workshop will dissect how we can further set ourselves up for success by looking at our trainings through the multi-layer lenses that come with intersectionality, power, and privilege, particularly for our LGBTQ+ and BIPOC campers and staff members. This session will provide both a toolkit of ideas to bring back to your team, as well as a real-life simulation on how to use the tools provided for both in-person and virtual training sessions.

Fresh Twists for Staff Orientation (Without Starting From Scratch!)
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 302
Is your staff orientation feeling a little “same old, same old”? This session is all about those small but mighty tweaks that can breathe new life into your training without tossing out what already works.
We’ll start by looking at how to evaluate last summer’s successes (and flops!) to figure out what’s worth keeping and what needs a refresh. You’ll discover how to layer in new, engaging elements that connect with today’s Gen Z staff, while also learning when to recognize that tried-and-true traditions may no longer hit the mark.
This isn’t a one-size-fits-all overhaul; every camp is different and your orientation should reflect that! Instead, you’ll walk away with 3-5 ready-to-use ideas, activities, and session outlines that you can plug directly into your existing orientation.
Join us for a fun, practical workshop that will help you keep your orientation fresh, exciting, and effective—year after year!

When Bad Things Happen to Good Campers
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 309
This session offers camp staff an essential foundation in understanding grief and bereavement: what it is, how it shows up, and how to support both themselves and their campers through it. Led by Corrie Sirota, MSW, PSW, and author of Someone Died…Now What? A Personal and Professional Perspective on Coping with Grief and Loss, the workshop draws on over 25 years of experience helping individuals and communities navigate crisis.
Participants will gain practical coping strategies to use when faced with the difficult reality of a death impacting the camp community, whether a camper, staff member, or family member. Special attention will be given to tailoring debriefings to the developmental needs of different age groups, ensuring that communication and support are both age-appropriate and compassionate. This session will leave staff better prepared to respond with confidence, care, and resilience when loss touches their camp environment.

Leading from the Middle
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 301
Middle management can be a funny place. Senior enough to make big decisions and lead teams, but not have the power to make organizational change. In this session, Diana Bloom will address the challenges of “Leading From the Middle” and offer ideas and tools for middle managers to succeed. We will explore what “managing up” means and doesn’t, why it matters, and guidelines to follow. Come to discuss strategies to proactively build productive relationships with supervisors and colleagues, to obtain the best possible results for you, your manager, and your organization.

Hiring in Real Life: Managing Late Hires Without Lowering the Bar
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 313
Even the most organized camps can find themselves hiring in June or scrambling mid-season when someone backs out. This session offers realistic systems to help leaders manage late hires strategically, not desperately. We’ll unpack what’s truly essential in screening, reference checks, and onboarding when time is tight, and how to design condensed training plans that still reinforce culture, safety, and professionalism. Participants will learn how to communicate expectations clearly, document effectively, and build quick-connect strategies that help new staff feel part of the team within days. Whether you’re filling a counselor role or a leadership gap, you’ll leave with practical templates, communication tools, and HR-informed guidance that keep standards high, even when the clock is not on your side.

Let’s Keep Our Hands to Ourselves
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 401
The camp experience is all about building relationships, meeting new people, making friends, and finding oneself. But what happens when lines are blurred and boundaries are crossed? How do camps navigate what is appropriate and inappropriate, and manage and respond to boundary violations and peer conflict? Using real examples from camp, this session will dive into what happens when campers cross lines, how Counselors and Directors respond, how to assess and manage risk, and what happens next.

Culture by Design: Developing Staff Through a Pyramid of Success
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 417
Legendary coach John Wooden built one of the most successful dynasties in sports history not by focusing on winning, but by defining and living his “Pyramid of Success,” a framework of values, habits, and character traits that guided every player and coach in his program. What if your camp had its own version of that?
In this session, we’ll explore how to intentionally design and reinforce a camp culture that reflects your core values at every level, from your directors to your newest counselors. Using Wooden’s Pyramid as a model, participants will learn how to identify their camp’s “building blocks,” align daily actions and traditions with guiding principles, and communicate those values so that everyone – campers, staff, and families – feels part of something meaningful. The result could be a camp that doesn’t just say what it stands for, but rather, it lives it every single day.

Firm, Kind, and Effective: Navigating Tough Parent Conversations
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 408/409
Today’s parents are more involved than ever, and sometimes, that involvement crosses boundaries or escalates into conflict. Whether you’re addressing a complaint, clarifying expectations, or de-escalating an emotional conversation, the way you communicate matters.
This session will provide practical strategies and a clear communication framework to help camp professionals engage confidently and respectfully with difficult parents. Drawing from real-world experience and a simple, memorable model, you’ll learn how to approach even the hardest conversations with professionalism, empathy, and consistency—without sacrificing clarity or authority.

Understanding LARP: the What, How, and Why (or Why Not)
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 304
Live Action Role Playing (LARP) has become more mainstream over the past few years; but what exactly is it? Most people think of it as a bunch of people in full costume running around and hitting each other with swords (which it totally can be, and that is very fun). But at its core, LARP is a story-telling medium. Come learn about LARP and how it can be integrated into your camp programming; either as an enhancement to what already exists, or as a completely new activity. Let The Wayfinder Experience bring you along on the journey from no budget and no space to elaborate costumes and rituals, with all the steps in between. Figure out how LARP can fit into your camp programming in the capacity that works best for you. Come listen, learn, and go back ready to play!
Following this session will be an additional session running a mini LARP for all levels to gain the full LARP experience.

Building Bridges: Partnering with Families for Successful Disability Inclusion
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 314
Building trust with families of children with disabilities is key to successful inclusion. This session offers practical strategies to create welcoming messaging, improve intake processes, and navigate challenging conversations with empathy. Participants will hear compelling family testimonials about the impact of true inclusion and explore ways to reduce non-disclosure by shifting the narrative from “Why didn’t they tell us?” to “How can we create the trust needed for families to share?”
Attendees will gain tools to foster stronger partnerships with families, empowering staff to better understand and support all participants. By focusing on communication, collaboration, and inclusive practices from the start, camp professionals can ensure every camper feels seen, supported, and able to thrive in their programs. This session equips staff with the mindset and methods needed to build meaningful bridges with families and create environments where all children truly belong.

The Game Design Lab: Forge Your Next Camp Classic
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 404
Is your special event calendar in need of a creative spark? Move beyond the traditional and learn to engineer unforgettable moments for your campers. This highly interactive session is a hands-on design lab where you won’t just learn theory, you’ll build a new game from the ground up.
As a facilitator, Luis will share his proven Experience Design process, challenging you to think outside the box and rapidly develop a unique activity in real-time. You’ll collaborate with peers in a dynamic, creative sprint. Participants will leave this session with a step-by-step creative framework to design impactful activities, the skills and confidence to facilitate this process with your own staff, and a brand-new, ready-to-play game designed by YOU for the summer!

Universal Values: How Camps Can Evaluate and Elevate Their Entire Staffing Cycle
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 303
As the staff experience continues to be put under a microscope, are camps doing enough to ensure that the expectations they set align with the realities their staff face? This session shares a new model camps can adopt to reshape their entire staffing process and provides tangible tips and tools camps can use to evaluate and level-up their interviews, onboarding/orientation, feedback systems, and how they can integrate each of these pieces of the puzzle into their overall staff culture. This session will focus on restructuring a camp’s entire staffing cycle, and will focus on what camps can do AFTER summer 2026, and how they can utilize their 2026 staff to help set the stage for the future, helping create buy-in and accountability for the summer ahead.

Mosquitoes at Camp: Prevention, Protection, and Peace of Mind
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 316
Mosquitoes are more than just a nuisance; they’re a public health concern that every camp should take seriously. In this session, Michael Hoban from New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Mosquito Control Coordination will discuss practical strategies to reduce mosquito presence and protect campers and staff. Drawing on his experience in statewide mosquito surveillance and control, he will cover prevention techniques, how to identify common breeding sites, and the science behind effective control methods. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how to work with local mosquito control programs to create a safer, more enjoyable camp experience. All in all, offering prevention, protection, and peace of mind.

Energize Your Orientation
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 202
Every year it’s the same challenge: with everything else going on, how do you plan and implement an orientation or kickoff event that sets the tone for a successful season and inspires your staff? We’ve got you covered. Get ready to channel your inner child and play like you’re back at camp!
Since 1996, Playworks has been the leading national organization leveraging the power of play to build staff capacity, promote community, and shape organizational culture. Through engaging activities, we will teach you actionable strategies and systems to manage large groups, resolve conflict, and build valuable social and emotional skills for the kids you work with. You’ll walk away with tangible skills that can be immediately applied to your orientation plans.
Lets get everyone at your camp sharing laughs, ideas, and unforgettable experiences that will prepare them for the best season yet.

What is ACA Doing in Washington DC, and How Can My Camp Benefit?
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 322
Come hear about ACA’s ongoing and ever-increasing work in DC and how you can support our advocacy efforts! Current hot topics include protecting the Bridge USA J-1 Visa programs, maintaining our federal wage and overtime exemptions, the tax deductibility of staff meals, ensuring access to federal lands, insurance availability and affordability, and other important federal matters. We will also discuss ACA’s work to build a Camp Caucus on Capitol Hill, as well as our upcoming Hill Days from April 28-30.

It's Not Laziness, It's Development: Understanding the Needs of Young Staff
2026-03-10 15:15 - 16:15 | Room 415
Camp staff are still developing the executive functioning skills that help adults stay organized, flexible, and emotionally regulated. What may look like laziness, defiance, or carelessness is often a skill gap, not a character flaw. In this session, Rachel Hoffman reframes common staff challenges through a developmental lens and helps camp leadership move from frustration to understanding. Participants will learn how to coach instead of criticize-unlocking potential, building accountability, and strengthening camp culture.
