With the summer job market a bit harder to enter in some of the better-paying venues, many older high school students and college-age students will be marching off to summer camp to work as counselors. And, at the high school level, coaches now are preparing the drills and team bonding experiences that will build camaraderie and skill sets at sports and cheerleader camps.
 
But recent history has shown us counselors charged with crimes, coaches fired, and camp victims injured and mentally scarred. Therein lies a warning and some things to think about.
 
There are no accurate surveys on the amount of hazing taking place in summer and sports camp, but the evidence sure has piled up over time that innocent campers as young as 11 (Arizona camp, 2006) have been sexually prodded through their clothing under the guise of initiation. At the high school level, incidents include hair hacking with scissors, inappropriate touching, physical abuse, rape and so on. I myself experienced some non-criminal hazing at a Boy Scout camp, but while finding it irritable (and getting into a brief fistfight), I simply accepted the stupid activities and shrugged them off. If something similar happened to you, and maybe you took a red belly for the team or something like it, bet you'd like today's counselors and campers to know now what you didn't know then. You don't have to dish out or take abuse.
 
I've written quite a few words about the victims of camp hazing for the HazingPrevention.Org blog and Stophazing.org, but this time I wish to address the counselors who might get sucked into a fatal mistake because of pressure from fellow counselors or even a misguided camp administrator or coach.
 
Here are some things to think about.
 
1) The American Camping Association is a reputable organization that serves as a kind of umbrella group urging high standards. The ACA, however, needs to send a stronger policy message to members that hazing is unacceptable. The message is long past overdue.
 
2) Every camp should not only be hazing free, and it should have training sessions for counselors that ADDRESS hazing. Counselors need a definition of hazing and they need a way to report initiations, horseplay, hazing if they get wind that any of these traditions are already in place.
 
3) Counselors should be wary of silly games that could easily escalate into hazing activities involving younger campers. Truth or Dare has been the single most consistent game causing such trouble in terms of media reports and parent complaints to me. There should be no games performed that the camp would rather not have videotaped and shown to a parent.
 
4) How does the camp treat a homesick camper or one that seems to have trouble fitting in or is morose? A counselor should watch for a sign that possible hazing may already have occurred. If so and serious, insist the incident be reported to legal authorities, not just a camp administrator who may cover up or underplay the seriousness of an incident.
 
5) What are the principles and values that guide the camp? Are these specifically stated in a mission statement or policy? The counselor should quote these to a coach or camp administrator who doesn't seem "to get" why hazing is problematic.
 
6 Is there adult supervision EVERYWHERE in camp, including the bathhouse, locker rooms, cabins, tents, swim area and buses used for field trips? Does the camp actively enforce unannounced bed checks?
 
7) Have any campers or athletes been sent home for disciplinary reasons the past three years? How many and for what reason?  (It's not necessarily a BAD thing if the camp or coaching staff seem to have zero tolerance for serious transgressions.)
 
8) Check what the campers or athletes pack. If they're packing flour, whipped cream, eggs and alcohol, you need to take a proactive stance and confiscate.