Is your child’s day camp safe enough? Is it regulated by the Department of Health? Does it meet the basic safety standards of a camp? These are some of the vital questions that most parents must consider before packing off their kids to single-day camps. Now if you can’t eat at a restaurant that is exempt from a Department of Health inspection for sanitary standards, how can you send your child to a Summer camp that doesn’t meet basic safety standards?
Believe it or not, most single-purpose day camps in New York, or any other part of America for that matter, do not conform to the basic healthy and hygiene standards as proposed by the New York State Law and aren’t inspected by the Department of Health. And as per the state Department of Health, there exists 2,400 such camps across New York alone that remains unregulated.
A single-purpose day camp such as gymnastics camp, baseball camp or basketball camp which involve just one non-passive recreational activity with significant risk of injury, often operate without a Department of Health permit or inspection and most often doesn’t comply to the strict safety standards as recommended by law.
For camps without DOH permission or inspection, there can be significant safety issues. For example, the employees and volunteers of such camps can be sex offenders. Since there are no regular inspections by the Department of Health including background checks of staff personnel, minimum age requirement for counselors, proper staffing ratios, and dozens of other safeguards that protect children, such summer camps could be dangerous for your children.
Here are a few things you can do to ensure that you leave your kids in trusted hands:
Make a site visit. No matter a single-activity day camp or not, ensure you visit the camp site in advance and check it out before enrolling your child. Thoroughly check the camp facilities like playground, equipment, indoors, pools, bathrooms, dorms to ensure the place is clean, safe, and child-friendly.
Do a safety check. Find out if there will be a stand-in nurse or other medical personnel on the premises during the camp? Also check if the counselors are CPR-certified? Make sure the camp has an emergency protocol at hand to deal with any crisis situation.
Do the math. Ensure that the camp has adequate adult supervision. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a child-to-staff ratio of 5:1 for toddlers 31 to 35 months old, 7:1 for three-year-olds, and 8:1 for four- and five-year-olds.
Be diet-conscious. If the camp offers snacks and lunch, ensure that the food is well balanced and nutritious and cooked, kept, stored and served under hygienic conditions.
Also, make sure that the camp abides be safety and sanitary conditions proposed by the health department. Remember, prevention is always better than cure. SO choose your summer camps with care.
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