Making Camper Care a Priority With Year-Round Staff Training
By Davey Rosen, Assistant Director
Camp Ramah makes camper care its highest priority.
Our campers' experiences are highly influenced by their relationships with
their counselors and the social dynamic among the campers in each bunk.
To ensure the best camper care, we provide extensive support and training for
our staff, especially our counselors. During the summer, staff members
receive a week of training before campers arrive, and continue to receive
training throughout the summer.
But staff training does not end in August. Ramah New England staff
members have several opportunities during the school year to continue
strengthening their counseling skills. Two opportunities in January,
created by the National Ramah Commission, are the Ramah/JNF Israel Program and
the Weinstein Institute for Counselor Training.
the Ramah/JNF program. This one-week trip for college sophomores and
juniors will include hands-on social service projects, limmud (learning) and
hadracha (leadership) training. This year, the New England participants
will be Mira Mendick, Hannah Simons and Danielle Guitelman. In addition,
Ariella Rosen, Rosh Amitzim in 2009, will be our lead educator for the trip.
Eight other New England counselors (more than ever!) have
been chosen to participate in the Weinstein Institute, to be held in Ojai,
California. Merav Bayar, Ben Cohen, Solomon Flax, Judy Gerstenblith, Jana
Katz, David Offit, Ilana Rosenbaum and Adina Rubin-Budick will be joined by
Leora Kimmel Greene, our veteran Assistant Director of Programming.
All participants in these two training programs will be returning to camp for
Kayitz 2010! We are gratified that these staff members understand the
value of ongoing counselor training, and will be working to ensure that our
campers have an amazing camp experience.
This article originally appeared in the Camp Ramah in New England, December 2009 E-Newsletter