Camps

Reducing the Risk of Abuse at Camp 

• Sexual Abuse Awareness Training provides an essential foundation for the prevention of sexual abuse at camp.

• Together with leading camp experts, MinistrySafe has created camp-specific awareness training and policies

• Awareness training allows camp employees and volunteers to recognize abuser characteristics, signs of abuse, and grooming behaviors before a child is harmed.

Camp programs can be particularly vulnerable to the risk of child sexual abuse.   Camp activities involving wide-open spaces, water activities and overnight stays can provide opportunity for sexually harmful peer interaction, as well as abuse at the hands of employees or camp volunteers.

Many camps rely almost exclusively on the use of criminal background checks to protect campers from sexual abuse.  Unfortunately, criminal background checks ALONE are not enough because less than 10% of sexual abusers will EVER encounter the criminal justice system.  Camp employees or volunteers in their late teens or early twenties - the average age of most camp employment pools - are unlikely to have searchable criminal history, as offenses occuring before age eighteen will not be revealed by conventional criminal background services.  Further, criminal background checks cannot reduce the risk of peer-to-peer sexual abuse, one of the more common abuse risks at camp.

Working with leading camp experts, MinistrySafe has created an awareness training that is tailored for use by camps and filmed at Kanakuk.

Click HERE to sign up as a MinistrySafe member and access the tools which can reduce the risk of child sexual abuse at your camp.