Concrete communications plans to create now for when a tragedy may happen to a beloved camper or staff member

Being a camp director is hard, full of tough days and rough nights. Among the hardest experiences we will ever have is trying to hold our community together through the death of a beloved staff, alumni, or camper. What makes it so hard is that we might barely be holding ourselves together. 

While neither fun nor exciting to think about, and doing so now you will better be able to care for yourself and your community in the moment. Talk with your leadership team about how you will handle a death in your community so that this is one less thing to stress over when you are in the moment.

Who do we need to communicate this to? 

Think to yourself who the audience will be for an email. If the loss is a camper- are you sending this to all families? Just the bunk or division? Are you including the camper’s staff? If a staff member, who does this go to? 

Creating Protocols

When I was a camp communications director, a longtime supporter of and donor to camp passed away after a full life. We had the conversation about what our protocol would be going forward, and the decision was that board chairs and life trustees would be communicated to our broad list of donors, alumni, and current families. This decision helped create clarity for future notices. 

Make a determination or protocol as the one mentioned, and that will help you at the moment reduce the number of decisions you have to make. And then make sure you commit that protocol to writing somewhere– be it your internal handbook, operations manual, or a sticky note on your monitor so that your camp can be consistent in its methodology. 

What will you say? 

Yes, you will share the news with the group you identified. Do you know how you will do it? I do not mean to be trite or diminishing of a loss by any means here: Do you have a template for this? What can you use to build one from other communications you may have sent? 

I have written on this before, and I highly recommend having an indexed google doc of “unplanned communications” that you send out, so that you have a starting point should you have to share tragic news. 

This is an area where school communications and camp communications heavily overlap. It might be worth forming a professional relationship with your local school district or major feeder schools’ communications teams. They may have sent similar letters in the past, and face many similar PR and Communications challenges to camps, and likely have an overlapping audience with you. 

Supporting your community

Ask the following questions to your team, as you seek to put together materials that will be needed: 

• What resources do we have available to share with families to help our families and campers address grief and loss?

• What resources can we create that are unique to us? 

• Are there outside resources, support systems, or places we can refer people for more assistance? 

• Should we arrange to hold a communal gathering (IRL or Zoom) to be together and process? 

These are just a few ideas to get you started in thinking about and creating an action plan when the unthinkable happens. I highly recommend checking out the American Camp Association resource library for their myriad of materials on this, as well as leaning on the Summer Camp Professionals group on Facebook. Where else will you find 20,000+ people who understand the situations you may be facing? 

Guest Author:

Ari Polsky is a camp consultant (aripolsky.com) and has been working in summer camps for 15 years. Most recently he served on the community care team at Camp Tel Noar and was the communications director at two Ramah camps. He is passionate about camp photography, data analysis, marketing, fundraising, emergency planning, and equitable and ethical workplace practices.