The Staff Experience

 

A Summer at Tamarack is more than just a Summer Job; it is an opportunity to impact the life of a child while learning valuable leadership and management skills. We hold our staff to an extremely high standard. Our Group Counselors and Specialists are supervised by Division Heads who check in throughout the day and provide feedback and coaching. Working at camp is a challenging job, but also very rewarding.

Many of our staff return summer after summer, and have experienced the joy of being campers themselves! Each year, we hire high school seniors, college students, and adults to fill our Group Counselor and Specialist positions. Tamarack Group Counselors spend all day with one group of kids. This provides them with the magical opportunity of creating shared experiences throughout the day with their campers. Participation in activities alongside the campers is a highlight for our staff and helps create that special bond between camper and counselor. Our Specialists are experts in their field and spend their days teaching skills, playing games and creating projects with our groups.

Training and Background

Staff_experienceTamarack staff undergo a full national criminal background check as well as reference and internet checks. We also require that our staff commit to the full 8 weeks of camp and go through an extensive 5 day training program which enhances their skills regardless of their experience level. We train our staff around our Prime Directives:

  1. Ensure the physical and emotional safety of every camper.
  2. Be good role models. All staff must be aware of the enormous responsibility they carry as role models to young children.
  3. Validate and share in campers’ successes. Our program exists to create success opportunities for the campers. The staff must validate and share in that success. To do so they MUST BE INVOLVED WITH THE CAMPERS in every aspect of their camp experience.