Meow Meow Foundation Takes A Formal Position on Children's Camps
POSITION STATEMENT: Meow Meow Foundation only supports children’s camps — whether located in California or elsewhere — that are licensed, properly inspected, supervised and operated by thoroughly trained operators with adequate knowledge of child care, subjected to background checks, equipped with a comprehensive emergency action plan, appropriately insured, transparent about practices and accountable for their actions. MMF also does not support any statute which enables American Camp Association accreditation to be a proxy for proper licensing and oversight. That level of self-policing, especially where it concerns childhood health and safety, is entirely inappropriate if not dangerously shortsighted.
Last year, Brant Lake Camp in New York ignored warnings about a child molester on its staff. That molester is now in jail for molesting nine boys. Brant Lake Camp is an accredited member of the American Camp Association. According to the American Camp Association, its accreditation is important “in the administration of key aspects of camp operation, particularly those related to program quality and the health and safety of campers and staff.”
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that an accredited or member camp of the American Camp Association has been responsible for sexual abuse, severe injuries, deaths and COVID-19 outbreaks. The American Camp Association promotes health and safety research that often comes from people with direct ties to the organization, including health industry folks with co-mingled business interests promoted by the American Camp Association.
Meow Meow Foundation believes that parents/guardians and children deserve better. MMF demands that improved statutes and even federal regulations are needed in short order. Camps are approximated to represent a $25+B industry serving millions of children. Current laws, however, appear to be woefully short of offering adequate protections for our most vulnerable citizens. The question is, “Why?”
This foundation has researched American Camp Association standards and practices. We have also met with some of its cohorts. Considerable deficiencies persist across the board. In fact, the American Camp Association aggressively and successfully lobbied the CDC, former VP Mike Pence and White House staff last year to open camps during COVID-19.
Weeks later, virus outbreaks occurred at camps across the nation. Camp High Harbour is an accredited member of the American Camp Association. More than 260 cases of COVID-19 blazed through the camp within only four days of opening. The American Camp Association chose not to address the matter.
In fact, the American Camp Association released its own report that failed to acknowledge the entire scope of the coronavirus issue at camps. Only 10 percent of its camps responded to the survey. The survey somehow did not even include Camp High Harbor with 260+ cases alone. Yet, the American Camp Association titled its report “What Did Success Look Like.”
Go here for a partial list of camps with COVID-19 outbreaks in 2020.
Perhaps success actually looks like a $26 billion industry over which the American Camp Association reigns without rival. Thousands of camp accreditation and membership fees add up. Private camps themselves can make considerable money from families who deserve more than biased data from insider research.
The 6-year-old daughter of foundation principals Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas, died at an unlicensed, unregulated recreational child care facility where a series of other children have been rushed to the hospital for a range of injuries over successive years, according to former employees themselves. This facility calls itself a camp and is a member of the American Camp Association.
Soon after Roxie’s preventable death, the facility applied for full American Camp Association accreditation. The American Camp Association obliged and collected more than $4,000 even though their own policy prohibits applications from facilities with ongoing ethical complaints. This facility has three such complaints, including an ongoing lawsuit by the state of California which charges that the facility is an illegal child care operation.
All camps that specifically cater to those ages 17 and under are essentially child care operations. To dispute this would be disingenuous, at best.
After exhaustive research and upwards of 50 meetings with state and local officials, the foundation has concluded that children’s camps can provide positive recreational and communal experiences. However, to continue to do so without appropriate standards, practices and enforcement is irresponsible if not inexcusable.
Far too many camps, especially here in California — the nation’s most populous state with thousands upon thousands of camps — run without an iota of regulation or oversight, which should be unacceptable to every parent or caregiver.
For instance, the California Department of Social Services oversees child care facilities. Their statutory requirements are clearly defined under the Child Day Care Facilities Act and further amended by the bill AB 605 which was signed into law in 2018. Meow Meow Foundation advocates that AB 605 be further amended to include children’s day camps and recreational child care facilities. This will ensure long overdue critical protections and oversight are afforded across the board.
Camps are wide-ranging in terms of size and programming and location. What cannot be disputed is that they care for children. And when an operation cares for children, the very least we should expect is that it abides by appropriate health and safety standards.
Not a single day camp in California has to abide by any health and safety standard other than the most basic health department requirements, which are marginal. No background checks are required. No emergency action plans are required. No specific training is required, let alone child care training. No particular standards are required for high-risk activities, including shooting .22 caliber rifles, zip-lining across treetops, throwing hatchets, shooting arrows, climbing sheer rock walls, and the list goes on.
Why do parents allow this? Why do parents pay for this? Why is it not OK for parents to send a 3-year-old to an unlicensed day care facility to sing songs and play with toys but it is OK to send 5, 6, 7, 10-year-olds to higher risk facilities that are entirely unlicensed or unregulated and do not require comprehensive inspections?
Numerous behavioral science studies prove that the adolescent brain does not stop growing until the mid-20s. Children in their teens are especially prone to taking risks and suffering consequences. Children are injured at work every five minutes. They suffer injuries at 2.3 times the rate of adults.
Children are taking care of children. They are also taking care of children who are shooting .22 caliber rifles, scaling sheer walls, whirring over treetops and lots more.
Recreational child care settings, otherwise known as camps, regularly employ adolescent counselors to take care of children. These counselors are inexpensive labor and they are available on school breaks. This is akin to lifeguards who are as young as 15 and in positions where hundreds and thousands of people are in their care.
They do not, however, ordinarily have any significant child care experience, and they comply with executing high-risk activities despite little to no oversight or experience. Even if counselors are in their late teens, they are far from fully cognitively developed.
The state of California and other states nationwide fail to believe that such operations should require the same oversight as other child care facilities with far less risk and far more owner-operators and staff members specifically educated and trained in child care.
Meow Meow Foundation has witnessed, first-hand, how the camp industry is fraught with lobbyists and devout gatekeepers and detached health departments satisfied with the status quo. This is not acceptable. Children deserve our best, not our easiest.
It is time that lobbyists and industry insiders and the American Camp Association set aside their biases to afford children the health and safety protections they deserve, let alone need. Meow Meow Foundation would gladly work with such groups if they decide to prioritize children over assets and life protections over loopholes and lethargy.