i

Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

How Camp Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Completed at Camp Canadensis

Canadensis, Pennsylvania

By

Jenna Cormier

COOP.460.86: Coopl: Camp Canadensis

Department of Psychology
Roger Williams University
Faculty Sponsor: Selby Conrad
August 17, 2022
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................1
Background Of Organization...........................................................................................1
Camp Canadensis Values................................................................................................2
Internship Objectives.......................................................................................................3
Structure and Functions of Camp Canadensis.....................................................................4
Orientation Week.............................................................................................................4
Daily Duties.....................................................................................................................6
Knowledge And Skills.........................................................................................................7
Integration of Past Classroom Theories...........................................................................7
Experience with Future Classroom Theories...................................................................8
Learning Objectives...........................................................................................................10
Achieving Critical Thinking/Problem Solving..............................................................10
Achieving Oral/Written Communication......................................................................11
Achieving Teamwork/Collaboration.............................................................................12
Achieving Leadership Skills..........................................................................................13
Perception and Judgments About Internship Experience..................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................13
Works Cited.......................................................................................................................15
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Introduction

Working at Camp Canadensis to complete my internship for credit was such a

positive experience that allowed me to apply and learn many different aspects in the field

of psychology. From starting on the application to the end of the internship, I felt very

comfortable due to all the videos and training that were provided to get us ready pre the

arrival of the campers. I discovered that Pam Malter, one of the directors at Camp

Canadensis had a phrase that she often used, stating that “a day here at camp feels like a

week, a week feels like a month, a month feels like a year, and that’s why I love spending

my summer here” and it was not long after I began my internship that I realized just how

true that statement was. Pam’s goal for the summer was to have a summer that was

“better than the bestest summer,” referring to the summer of last year’s camp as the

“bestest summer” campers had ever experienced. I believe it is safe to say that this goal

was accomplished in multiple ways such as the entire staff at Camp Canadensis consisted

of staff from eighteen different countries and twenty-seven states in America and that

camp was able to resume their trips after stopping due to Covid.

Background Of Organization

According to the staff handbook, Camp Canadensis was founded over 80 years

ago, meaning that staff and campers have had an opportunity to experience over seventy-

five summer sessions, and even recently adding a winter office location (Canadensis Staff

Handbook). The camp consists of co-ed campers, split right down the middle, with

approximately 250 boys and 250 girls, all between the ages of seven to sixteen years old

(Canadensis Staff Handbook).

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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Camp Canadensis was originally founded by William Saltzman in 1941, since

then, his grandson, Yale Saltzman, has teamed up with a former employer’s nephew, Neil

Sukonik, to keep the camp running. Neil, his wife Sue, and daughter CJ have been

essential to the camp community. Neil works as the camp’s managing owner “dedicated

to make each summer as meaningful as possible for the campers” while Sue oversees the

Health Center and acts as a resource for staff as she has been a family and adolescent

clinical therapist (2020). Their daughter CJ oversees the STEM program and is a great

resource for homesick children as she provides many stories of her enjoyment growing

up in Camp Canadensis.

The main goal that Camp Canadensis focuses on is to “create an environment that

is emotionally, physically, and socially safe for campers” (Canadensis Staff Handbook).

This task is completed by making sure that the camp counselors embrace their role as a

mature goofball, staying responsible yet making sure that all campers are having fun.

Camp Canadensis Values

As a sleep away summer camp, there are values that need to be met each day of

the summer by both campers and staff. These values include honesty, dependability, fun,

personal growth, sharing, respect, independence, inclusion, helpfulness, and tradition

(Canadensis Staff Handbook). When everyone abides to these values, the day can run

smoothly.

Some examples of these values being accomplished are by a camper consoling

another homesick bunkmate, a camper helping their bunkmates complete morning clean-

up jobs, or a camper going out of their way to make sure that another bunkmate was

included in an activity.
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Internship Objectives

As a camp counselor, it is expected that you demonstrate positive behavior such

as healthy habits and morals, appreciate outdoor activities, and be comfortable to work

with little to no privacy around the campers and other bunk staff (Canadensis Staff

Handbook). Canadensis also requires their staff to be willing to work within the

boundaries of the stomping ground, be mentally mature and use age-appropriate

decisions, are not worried to seek advice from supervisors, can participate as a team

player, and act like a mature goofball (Canadensis Staff Handbook). Camp explains being

a mature goofball as someone who is “mature, responsible, and dependable while also

being fun, easy going and even a bit goofy” (2021). This allows counselors to get in a

groove to have campers listen to them, but also be the cool counselor.

Being an in-bunk counselor with the campers can be a daunting task that requires

a lot from each of the in-bunk staff. Directly from the staff handbook, Camp Canadensis

requires their counselors to be able to:

Live with and be responsible for a group of campers in a bunk, supervise the[ir]

hygiene, health, cleanliness, and safety of those campers, [while] display[ing]

patience, sensitivity, and understanding toward their campers [. They also need to]

involve themselves in the needs and desires of campers, be the first one ready to

start their day in the bunk, [and] set an example by helping to clean up their own

belongings and the overall bunk, [which involves] help[ing] campers keep track

and care for their clothing and belongings in the bunk [. Lastly, counselors need

to] be a role model and look for ways to create fun [throughout the weeks of being

at camp.] (Canadensis Staff Handbook)

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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Since being a camp counselor for up to thirteen campers can be difficult, Camp

Canadensis provides many great resources to help and ensure that you and your campers

are in good conditions, mentally and physically.

Structure and Functions of Camp Canadensis

Orientation Week

During the first week at camp, there were no campers as it was a training week for

all counselors. Counselors were placed into orientation bunks to help with meeting many

people from all different areas of camp. This provided new and returning counselors the

ability to become familiar with other staff that they may see throughout the following

seven weeks of camp.

Orientation week at Camp Canadensis not only allowed its staff to become

familiar with everyone working around them, but also entails many different types of

training to prepare all staff for when the campers arrive.

This training consisted of many different workshops with counselors split up into

the age group they would be working with, such as lower, middle, and senior camp, and

lead by the group leaders. The workshops taught us how to stop bullying from occurring,

how to deal with homesickness, what to do during different emergencies, and even

smaller things such as camp cheers and how to referee sports games.

A few days of orientation consisted of counselors learning about each of the

campers in their bunks and their individual needs such as nightly routines, how they are

best encouraged, if they take medication, if they have food allergies, or certain situations

that may be going on in homelife causing stress. This is called camper confidentials and
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

is written directly by the child’s parents. To make sure the counselors that will be living

with the campers knows each child upon arrival, there is a small quiz given to test the

counselor’s knowledge.

During this time, the head leaders of lower, middle, and senior camp as well as

the camp moms, participated in the meetings to provide additional information or tips that

were helpful to learn and know before the campers arrived. They were able to explain to

us that they would not only be resources for just the campers, but to all counselors as

well. They showed us where to bring campers with food allergies, where the picky eater

line was and made sure we knew how to handle campers who wet the bed without

making it a big deal in front of others.

Another big focus during training was with the health center. Here, we learned

how to handle an allergic reaction and how to administer an EpiPen injection. The head

nurse also emphasized how important hydration with children, especially when running

around in the summer heat. She discussed how important it was to make sure that

everyone always has their water bottle and to make sure they drink more before bringing

them to the health center for issues such as headaches and stomachaches, unless it seems

concerning, because their common causes are dehydration.

In a separate meeting that was split up by divisions, the head nurse discussed

individual campers with us so that we were prepared for diseases or disorders that some

of the campers had. This meeting helped prepare us for ways to help our campers and

how to tell when we need to take them to the health center.

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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Daily Duties

The first task of each day at camp was to wake up before Reveille1 to ensure that

as the counselor, you were up and ready by the time the trumpets sounded to help the

campers get up and ready for breakfast on time.

Other tasks throughout the day included things such as taking them to all their scheduled

activities, make sure they stayed hydrated, take them to the health center during the

designated times if needed, and to making sure that all your campers are eating at the

three mealtimes.

During the campers’ activities, the counselors have bigger tasks to do than just

watch from the side lines and cheer. To start off, counselors must make sure that their

campers are arriving to their activities on time and ready to participate with the correct

materials. Counselors then need to consider the well-being and safety of their campers as

priority and most times even participate in the activities to ensure that the campers

recognize how much fun they will be haveing when they see you on the field or in the

pool as well.

Some other daily tasks of the counselors are to be the shoulder to lean on for the

campers. They are away from their parents, most likely for the first time, for seven weeks

and need authority, but also a caring, patient counselor for when they are upset about big

things, or even little things.

As a counselor, it was also important to eat every meal, even if you did not like

them, participate in all sports and activities, and to praise all campers’ successes, no

1
A bugle call at sunrise that is used to signal originally military to get up in the morning
and ready for the day (Merriam-Webster).
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

matter how big or small, because the campers really do look up to you and you need to be

the best, most positive role model for them that you could possibly be.

Knowledge And Skills

Integration of Past Classroom Theories

Over the past three years of being a student at Roger Williams University, I have

earned credits for many different courses in the psychology field. I can say with

confidence, that all the psychology courses that I have completed helped me in some

way.

During camp, since I was an upper junior counselor, which translates to taking

care of 13 nine-year-old girls, a few of the psychology courses that I took were beneficial

to this internship such as child development, psychology of women, introduction to

psychopathology, and counseling theories and skills.

The course of child development prepared me for any age group I could have

worked with since it taught about the prenatal ages all the way through middle childhood.

The professor that I had for this course was also the professor for Positive Psychology so

sometimes she would incorporate those aspects into child development. She often had us

meditate at the beginning of class to clear our minds and start fresh. This was a task I

often used with my homesick campers to help them calm down.

One of the ways that Camp Canadensis splits its campers up is not only by

divisions, but also by gender. This is where my course of psychology of women was

useful to have in my back pocket. It became obvious that the boys at camp played more
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

sports for their activities while the girls had activities such as friendship bracelet making

and TikTok dance making.

One of my campers had a disorder called Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric

Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections, or otherwise known as by PANDAS.

This disorder affects children, between the ages of 3 to 12 years old, who have had an

infection such as strep throat or scarlet fever (Pandas Syndrome). This disorder causes

symptoms such as tics and obsessive-compulsive behaviors (Pandas Syndrome).

While my course of introduction to psychopathology did not teach me about this

disorder, since it is not listed in the DSM-5, the course did teach me about OCD. With

some background information on OCD, I was able to recognize when she was

experiencing some of the behaviors and get her to the health center to be checked out.

During the 8 weeks that I was at camp, as imagined, I delt with a lot of arguing,

homesick, stressed campers. In all these situations, I was able to use techniques that I

learned in counseling theories and skills. The course taught me how to be a better

listener, how to present myself as a calm and warming counselor and have empathy.

Integration of Experience with Future Studies

When I first started at Roger Williams University, I was an elementary education

major, however, it just did not feel like the right option for me. I not long after switched

my major to psychology and added a minor in education studies. While I was excited

about my change, I was also nervous that I would not enjoy working with children when

it was not in a teaching environment.

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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

For my career, I still want to work with children in a school, but instead of as a

teacher, either a school counselor, school psychologist, or a social worker. While these

options entail different aspects of psychology, they all involve me working with children.

Working at the summer camp and living with thirteen young girls, it prepared me

for how to understand, listen, and talk to children. Camp gave me the opportunity I

needed to experience conversations with children that had to do with homelife, interests,

and their own stories and not just conversations about how to spell words or solve a math

problem. The situations that I experienced during my time working at Camp Canadensis

were on the spot and taught me how to not only react mentally but act physically in a split

second.

For example, in the same week at camp, three huge situations happened for my

campers. First, a group leader on the boys side of camp was fired for allegedly grooming2

one of my campers, then one of my co counselors was swapped because she was a little

too rough for the younger kids and camp decided she would be a better fit for older

campers, and third, during morning line up, where announcements are made, camp

decided to state that visiting day would be held virtually and then glossed over the fact

like it was not a huge deal.

These three situations led to damage control such as comforting crying campers,

listening to their concerns, comforting them, and trying to explain why these decisions

had to be made for the safety of all campers. This summer, not only did I teach my

campers things such as making friendship bracelets to pass time, or coach them in soccer

and basketball, but I was also the person for them to lean on, rant to, cry to and comfort,
2
The criminal activity of becoming friends with a child in order to try to persuade the
child to have a sexual relationship (Grooming).
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

as well as mediate arguments, and explain to them why camp rules need to be followed

by all campers and counselors to ensure everyone’s safety.

Learning Objectives

Achieving Critical Thinking/Problem Solving

One of the learning objectives that I grew accustomed to throughout the summer

was critical thinking and problem solving. This objective was accomplished every day at

camp since almost all situations were determined in the moment and could not

necessarily be prepared for ahead of time.

In one specific instance, a camper of mine woke me up at 3:20 in the morning

because she had fallen asleep with an open container of slime on her bed and had it all

over her sheets, comforter, face, neck, and arm, as well in her ear and hair.

When I was woken up and saw the slime everywhere, I had to decide on how to

go about the situation. What was I going to do about her bed? Should I wake up other

counselors? Do I just have her go back to be and we will deal with it in later in the

morning? So many questions were running through my head, but I had to make the

decisions.

I decided that I needed to strip her bed so that she would not spread the slime

more and put a towel on the mattress for until she had clean sheets to put back on. I then

decided to take her into the bathroom so that I could start getting the slime off her

without waking up other campers. When I noticed that it was also in her hair, I made the

decision to wet her hair, put a little shampoo in it, and brush it out with a comb. Later in
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

the morning, I was able to talk to a camp mom to get me white vinegar to get the

remaining slime off her skin and out of her hair as well had her shower after breakfast.

Achieving Oral/Written Communication

Camp also helped me perfect my oral and written communication skills. At camp,

counselors were required to complete a daily log sheet for their bunk. This sheet had each

camper’s name with space for you to write about their day. It also had space for you to

express your concerns about the bunk such as participation, behavior, clean-up, or shower

hour. This sheet provides head staff information on how campers are doing and can later

be used to inform parents if there are any troubles.

Since one of my co counselors and I were the general bunk counselors in our

bunk, meaning we were always with our campers, we would often sit and complete the

daily log sheet together. This allowed me to achieve my objective of oral and written

communication since my co and I would discuss everything before writing anything

down. The paper would be handed to our group leader, who would read it, then to the

head counselor of lower camp who would also read it.

My co and I would try to make the paper look as professional as possible so that

everyone could read it and know what was going on within the bunk. Sometimes, the

sheet led to bunk discussions, after things that were written caused concern.

This task was a great element for the summer because it allowed me to

communicate with my co and focus on the positives and negatives of each of my campers

throughout each day. This task also allowed counselors to voice their concerns and

provided a way for head staff to be aware.

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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Oftentimes, when our campers asked us what we were doing, my co and I would

respond that it was our “daily letter to Anna,” because that’s honestly what it felt like. We

would fill it out as if it was an update to our group leader about how our bunk was doing

each and every day.

Achieving Teamwork/Collaboration

One of the easiest things to do while at Camp Canadensis was to achieve

teamwork and collaboration skills. From the start of staff training until the end of camp,

teamwork was being used. In staff training, counselors started to learn dances to perform

for our camps’ MTV night. These dances involved a lot of teamwork and collaboration

from all participants. Then at the end of camp, there was color war that also involved a

lot of teamwork and collaboration during the final event of Sing, when all campers and

counselors learn four songs that they must sing and perform to be judged.

In my bunk, while there were four counselors that lived in it, only one of them

and I were always with the bunk. This took a lot of teamwork between my co and I to

make sure that we were always on the same page. Our campers often tried to manipulate

the situation, asking one counselor a question and if they did not like the answer, they

would ask the other counselor to get the answer they were hoping for. Once we were

aware that this was occurring, we made sure to check with each other and discuss the best

option before giving the camper a yes or no answer.

Collaboration was also a huge objective during color war. I was paired with a

counselor from a different division to coach lower and upper junior girls in all the

different activities. Since we did not know each other too well, we had to work together

to make sure that we were coaching and encouraging the girls the same way.
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Achieving Leadership Skills

As for leadership skills, it took me a little bit to find my groove. As a naturally

shy person, it felt odd to me to jump right in and oversee my campers. However, after a

week, as my group leader liked to put it, I found my counselor voice.

Once I became familiar with my co counselors and got to know my campers a

little more, such as their natural personalities, it felt more natural to be their leader and

tell them right from wrong.

Other ways that I participated in acting like a leader are examples like coaching

soccer and basketball for teams within my division. This allowed me to get to know the

girls that were in the same division as me but living in other bunks. When some of the

counselors in my division had to leave camp early, this helped me be able to aid those

bunks since I knew the campers and they knew me. During activities, when their

remaining counselors were busy, I would provide assistance and take some of the

campers to the bathrooms or to get medical attention since my bunk had multiple

counselors.

Perception and Judgments About Internship Experience

Conclusion

As someone who has never attended any type of summer camp before, this was a

whole new experience for me. This internship provided me so many skills that I never

would have gained without it. The past eight weeks that I spent in the Pocono Mountains

working at Camp Canadensis was eye opening and gave me a such a great opportunity to

work with children, my lovely upper junior girls.

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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

While there were many ups and downs that accompanied this internship, Camp

Canadensis overall was such a positive environment to be a part of this summer as I

learned so much, such as how to be patient when woken up at three in the morning

because your camper has slime all over herself, teamwork when having to work as a

division to fill in the gaps when counselors had to unexpectedly leave, and even how to

put myself out there and become less shy and more of an authority figure.
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Counseling Provided Psychology Experiences

Works Cited

Camp Canadensis (2022) Staff Handbook, Everything you need to know about being a
mature goofball at Camp Canadensis. Canadensis, PA: Brian Krug, Pam Malter,
Neil Sukonik

Grooming. GROOMING | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary. (n.d.).

Retrieved August 16, 2022, from
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/grooming

Meet the owners. Camp Canadensis. (2020, January 15). Retrieved August 15, 2022,
from https://www.canadensis.com/about/meet-the-owners-2/

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Reveille definition & meaning. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved

August 15, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reveille

Pandas syndrome: What it is, causes, symptoms & treatment. Cleveland Clinic. (n.d.).
Retrieved August 15, 2022, from
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23553-pandas-syndrome

What we are looking for. Camp Canadensis. (2021, April 2). Retrieved August 15, 2022,
from https://www.canadensis.com/staff/what-we-are-looking-for/