Written mostly in October 3, 2022, primarily by Chana Messinger with help from various members of the EA community involved in running high school programs, with editing ongoing.

About this document:

Table of Contents

Things Chana Thinks Every Camp Should Have

Legal / safety things (most absolutely crucial)

Things that can go wrong (just to give a sense)

• Accidents
• Medical emergencies (including allergic reactions)
• Mental health issues e.g. panic attacks
• Homesickness
• Bullying
• Participant is asked to or wants to go home early

Policies and rules (very important)

• [ ] I recommend having a clear COVID policy and planning ahead of time what you will do if someone gets COVID. Most programs I’ve looked up have their covid policies on their websites or discussed in FAQs, so that would be my recommendation (but I don’t feel like it’s a requirement)

Hiring people (Important for success, but not crucial for core safety)

Clarity of purpose / Transparency

Strong recommendations but not requirements

• [ ] Reduce age range, especially in the UK - causes issues of people who don’t want to obey the same rules / have some people able to drink and some people not, and more age gaps for potential romantic entanglements
  • As with all these recommendations, there may be reasons it’s worth it, in which case I recommend communicating with older students in advance, make sure they know same rules will apply to them, especially if there might be cultural differences in how seriously that kind of thing is taken

Prep and plans

Venue and ops

Norms and culture

Bonus thoughts

Appendices: Patterns and vignettes