This summer, staff and leaders at a number of summer camps in Massachusetts are receiving professional behavioral health skills training from McLean Hospital’s School Consultation Service.
The coaching and support services are designed to help camp counselors and other frontline staff navigate common mental and behavioral health challenges that children and adolescents often experience. In addition, the trainings can empower camp leaders to offer informed support to their staff and campers alike.
Community-Driven Support
“We’ve worked with the JCC of Greater Boston since 2022 and began working on a very large partnership with YMCA of the North Shore at the start of this year,” said Maggie Gorraiz, PhD, program director of the School Consultation Service.
“In both partnerships, we provide training and ongoing consultation to their summer camp staff. Our trainings are designed to help camp staff calm and center campers who are experiencing big emotions and get them right back into camp.”
The School Consultation Service works with communities who are invested in supporting the social-emotional development and well-being of children and adolescents. The staff accomplishes this by translating strategies they use in McLean’s treatment clinics for use in school-based—and now, increasingly, camp-based—settings.
“Camps are unique. Next to schools, they are the largest organizations supporting kids, but camps usually have less formal therapeutic supports in comparison,” Gorraiz said. “Being in nature, making new social connections, and not having the academic pressures of the school year can all contribute to a lot of kids really thriving at camp.”
Specialized Training for Camp Staff
Gorraiz and other McLean staff work with the various camps’ operators, executive leadership, and camp counselors.
“Camp staff have so many demands on them,” said Gorraiz. “They are greeting the campers at the start of the day, helping them transition to activities that maybe the kids feel a little anxious or reticent about, and they’re helping to respond to campers who may be experiencing some sort of interpersonal challenges with peers. That’s a lot for anybody, no matter how skilled or experienced the staff person may be,” Gorraiz continued.
For the YMCA of the North Shore program, “We provide a four-hour in-person training that includes a skills protocol, general information about mental health and young people, conflict resolution, and more,” Gorraiz shared. “We also offer sub-specialty training for camp counselors who are supporting tweens and teens. This includes information on cognitive and social development for this age group.”
Many of the camps also hire clinically oriented mental health support staff. The YMCA has “inclusion specialists,” while the JCC employs “community support advocates.”
“These are incredibly skilled and knowledgeable on-the-ground individuals supporting the frontline staff at the various camps,” Gorraiz said.
McLean staff, on the other hand, don’t provide any direct care at the camps. They offer trainings and have ongoing consultation services throughout the summer camp season as needed to help support the camp staff.
Strengthening Youth Mental Health Together
Both the JCC of Greater Boston and YMCA of the North Shore are undertaking partnerships with McLean this summer. The JCC’s camp that works with the School Consultation Service welcomes more than 1,500 campers and 300 staff each summer. And some 5,000 young people attend YMCA of the North Shore-affiliated camps each year.
The camp programming at the Y is part of a larger, multi-year youth mental health initiative called ONEDoor, which is supported by philanthropy from Kristine Trustey and Sean McGraw. Trustey and McGraw are also longtime supporters of McLean Hospital.
“The Y sees this as an ongoing effort, and they wanted to partner with the best in the field of child and adolescent mental health,” said Lori Etringer, MBA, senior vice president of development for McLean.
“Several longtime McLean donors—who also support the Y—including Kris Trustey and Sean McGraw, who are co-chairs of McLean’s The Way Forward Campaign, and Courtney and Mark Kagan, who are members of the McLean Board of Visitors, helped connect us. We are incredibly grateful for this opportunity, and we’re excited to be working with an organization that’s so clearly committed to the mental well-being of the community’s young people.”
Added Gorraiz, “Behavioral health needs don’t disappear in the summer. And camps are perfectly suited to supporting young people, including those who experience mental health challenges. Making sure that camp staff and leaders can identify situations that may require mental health supports, de-escalate if necessary, and offer evidence-based techniques to address some of these issues, while getting training and personalized consultations from the School Consultation Service along the way, means more young people will be able to get their mental health needs met year-round.”
“It’s yet another potential benefit of summer camp,” she said.
Learn more or inquire about engaging with McLean Hospital’s School Consultation Service.
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