The following are portions of a paper I wrote for my undergrad about the CIT program at Camp Calumet.
During, the summer of 2000 I was the co-leader of the Counselor in Training program at Camp Calumet. We designed and implemented an eight-week leadership program for fifteen and sixteen year olds. This specific program has been established at Calumet since the mid-seventies. We were basically handed a staff manual and were told that we had to teach the CITs everything in the staff manual in eight weeks, plus we assisted in training them to be lifeguards, and teach them the basic principals of working with children 8 years old to 15 years old.
Purpose
Calumet Lutheran Camp and Conference Center is a year round Lutheran camp for boys, girls, families and adults. Part of their mission is to support the Lutheran Congregations in New England. That includes a summer camp program for kids and a summer campground (with program) for families and adults. The Counselor in Training Program works with both programs and is designed to help transition the participants from being a camper to becoming a staff member. It is equips the participants with skills to become better leaders. There is also a Leadership and Service program that is a four week program. This is a similar program but has different aspects to the program but I did not have major involvement in this program.
When the program started we wanted to strengthen their inter and intra personal skills. At the start of the summer there were twenty-four sixteen year-olds who do not know each other, and they are put into a situation where they have to live together in a confined space. For most of the youth this is their first experience away from home. They are going to have to learn to get a long with each other and eventually start becoming their own person.
The first two weeks of their summer are spent in meetings. We tell them about the rules and regulations. We also teach a Bible curriculum and how to take that information to make lesson plans for when they teach the kids. Development of activities and flow of lessons is also an essential part of the program and something that the youth do not have much experience with.
After they are done with the program, one goal is to have each youth excited about their faith and able to be confident about their skills and gifts that God has given them and to share these with others.
Participant Recruitment and Retention
The majority of the youth who participate in the Counselor in Training Program are youth who in some way or another have participated in a Calumet run program in the past. Most of the youth say that Calumet is an addiction because once you attend a program you will tend to participate in Calumet programs the rest of your life. The freedom of expression of who you are and your faith is amazing to those who participate in the program.
The average career of a camp counselor at Calumet is around six summers. It is not the pay that makes the counselors come back year after year but it is the history of relationships, the fellowship between staff, the ability to grow in your faith and the beauty of the camp that attracts them to come back.
Leadership
Throughout the summer the leadership and decision-making time become more and more frequent for the participants in the program. When they first come there are rules that they need to follow and structure that is set for them so they can get in a routine and become comfortable with the situation in which they find themselves. As the summer progresses they become more independent and make decisions for themselves and for the entire group. What they do reflects positively or negativity on the whole group. This builds a sense of togetherness and makes each of them accountable with one another. As the group begins to gel the participants become more comfortable with their surrounds which in turn helps them become more comfortable and confident with themselves.
