For camp directors
Camp is the only volunteer role that comes with a bed next to a child.
Every few years another camp ends up in the news, and the reporting reads the same way each time: small things, noticed by different people, that nobody put together until it was far too late. This page collects that reporting, names the patterns it keeps describing, and gives you three free workbooks to use before next season — whether or not you ever screen a single volunteer with us.
Start here
Four hours that will change how you run staff week
Elizabeth Phillips has spent years on what happened at Kanakuk, one of the largest Christian sports camps in the United States. If you run a camp, the part worth your attention is not the crimes themselves — it is how ordinary the surrounding decisions were, and how many people saw a piece of it.
Shawn Ryan Show · 2026 · 4 hr
Elizabeth Phillips — Camp Kanakuk: Exposing One of the World’s Largest Summer Camps
A survivor advocate walks through how abuse at one of the largest Christian summer camps in the country went on, and what the institution did as it surfaced. Long, and worth the drive time.
Why camps carry a risk a weekly program does not
None of this is an argument that camps are dangerous places. It is an argument that the structure of camp removes the ordinary friction — other adults nearby, a parent at pickup, a short visit — that limits access everywhere else.
Day and night, not an hour on Sunday
A cabin counselor is with the same children at breakfast, at the waterfront, at lights out and at 2am when someone is homesick. No other volunteer role in America carries that much unbroken access to a child.
Hired in a panic, in April
Seasonal hiring compresses months of judgement into a few weeks, and the last person to apply is the one whose references get called on a Friday afternoon, if at all. Speed is exactly when checks get skipped.
Young staff supervising younger children
A nineteen-year-old with a clean record is not a risk in themselves. They are also not equipped to challenge a popular senior staffer who keeps bending one rule for one camper.
Returning staff stop getting looked at
The counselor in their fifth summer is the one nobody re-screens and nobody questions. Trust accumulates faster than scrutiny does.
What the reporting shows
Independent journalism, not our summary of it. Watch two of these with your leadership team before staff week and ask one question afterwards: which of these moments could happen at our camp on a Tuesday?
VICE News · 2021 · 17 min
Abused at Christian Summer Camp, Survivors Say They’ve Been Kept Silent
Survivors describe what reporting it did, and did not, change — including the settlement terms that kept them quiet.
Law&Crime Network · 2021 · 22 min
Brian Ross Investigates: Inside the “Cult-Like” Virginia Summer Camp
A different camp, the same shape: isolation, a revered leader, and years of complaints that went nowhere.
St. Louis Public Radio (KWMU) · 2024 · 24 min
Decades of abuse at Kanakuk evangelical camp leads reporter to St. Louis ministry
The reporter’s view: how a pattern spanning decades stayed inside the organisation, and who kept asking.
CBS Texas · 2021 · 4 min
I-Team: Victims Gather To Speak Out About Sexual Abuse At Popular Christian Camp
Short enough to play at a staff meeting before the conversation you need to have.
The patterns that get missed
Every one of these has an innocent explanation on any given day. That is precisely why they work, and why the answer is a written record rather than a gut feeling. None of them is evidence of wrongdoing on its own, and none should ever be treated as a finding about a person.
One adult, one child, out of sight
The store run, the walk to the health center, the ride home. Individually ordinary; as a habit with the same child, the most consistent feature in the case reporting.
The rule bent for one camper
Later bedtime, extra privileges, a job that keeps them behind after the others leave. Special treatment is how access gets manufactured in plain view.
Contact outside camp hours
Direct messages, personal phone numbers, off-season visits, gifts sent home. Ask every reference about it; ask every candidate about it.
Secrecy framed as friendship
"Don’t tell your counselor, they wouldn’t get it." A child being asked to keep an adult’s confidence is the signal, regardless of what the secret is.
Different people each seeing one thing
Three staff who each noticed one odd moment will not compare notes on their own. Writing observations in one place is what turns three shrugs into a pattern.
The adult everybody vouches for
Being beloved is not evidence of anything either way. In the reporting, it is routinely what delayed the first hard question by years.
Free, no account needed
Three workbooks to use before next season
Branded Excel downloads with the formulas already written. They do the part that is hard to sustain in June: connecting observations that arrive weeks apart, asking every reference the same questions, and finding the gaps in a supervision rule everyone believes they follow.
Boundary & Grooming Pattern Log
Log what was observed, in neutral language. The workbook counts observations per staff member and per camper and raises a flag on the second and third — the ones nobody connects in the moment.
Download freeReference Check Script & Scorecard
Nine questions asked the same way of every candidate, including the two people skip: would you put them alone with a child, and did they contact children outside program hours.
Download freeSupervision Gap Audit
Twenty situations where one adult can end up alone with one child at a camp. Mark which are possible at yours, write the rule, and name who checks it.
Download freeMore for camps: certification tracker, seasonal hiring pipeline, incident & injury log, camper-to-staff ratio planner.
How to check a camp volunteer’s references properly
Reference calls are the cheapest thing on this page and the first thing dropped when April gets busy. Done the same way every time, they are also where hesitation becomes visible.
- 1Find the number yourself.Call the organisation on a number from its own website, not the one the candidate supplied. Confirm the reference is who they were said to be.
- 2Ask every candidate the same nine questions.Consistency is what lets you compare answers. Improvised calls produce "seemed nice" and nothing else.
- 3Ask the two that feel awkward.Would you put them alone with a child in your own program? Did they have contact with children outside program hours? Then stop talking and let the pause sit.
- 4Write answers as given.Quote rather than paraphrase, especially a hedge. "I’d rather not say" is information, and it belongs in the file word for word.
- 5Require two reached references.Not two names supplied — two humans actually spoken to, before anyone is around campers.
- 6Compare the story.Why they left, as told by the candidate and by the reference. A mismatch is worth one more phone call.
A reference check is not a background check and does not replace one. What a former employer may disclose is limited by state law and by their own policy.
Training worth showing your staff
Prevention material from researchers and child-safety organisations. The bystander session in particular is built for the nineteen-year-old who noticed something and is deciding whether to say it.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health · 2020 · 16 min
How Youth Serving Organizations Can Prevent Child Sexual Abuse
The research view of what actually reduces risk in organisations like yours — screening, supervision, and culture together.
Darkness to Light · 2016 · 23 min
Bystanders Protecting Children from Boundary Violations and Sexual Abuse
Built for the staff member who saw something small and is deciding whether to say it out loud. Good all-staff training.
Darkness to Light · 2018 · 2 min
Keeping Kids Safe from Grooming and Manipulation
Two minutes on what grooming looks like from the outside. Useful in a parent newsletter.
Free courses, certificate included
Put it on the staff-week schedule
VolunteerBadge Academy is free and needs no purchase. Assign the left-hand column to every counselor before campers arrive; the right-hand column is the hour you owe yourself in the off-season. Each course ends with a certificate your staff can keep on file.
For your seasonal staff
Assign in this order. Roughly three and a half hours of training, and the first two matter most.
- Camp and Retreat Safety35 min
Cabin supervision, overnight safeguards and the campfire-to-lights-out hours. The one to assign first.
Start free - Preventing Grooming Behaviors30 min
The patterns on this page, taught to the people who will actually witness them.
Start free - Safe Volunteer Practices Around Children30 min
The everyday rules that protect campers and protect staff from being alone with a claim.
Start free - Recognizing Signs of Abuse and Neglect30 min
What a counselor might see in a cabin that a parent never does.
Start free - Mandatory Reporting Basics30 min
Who must report, when the clock starts, and why telling a supervisor is not the same as reporting.
Start free - Digital Safety for Youth Volunteers25 min
Group chats, personal phones and photos — where most off-season contact begins.
Start free - Transportation Safety for Youth Programs25 min
The store run and the airport pickup, handled before somebody improvises.
Start free
For you, the director
The decisions that get made once, badly, in April — screening, policy, and what happens after a report.
- Volunteer Screening Fundamentals35 min
What a check does and does not tell you, and how to screen the same way every time.
Start free - Risk-Based Screening Decisions30 min
How to weigh a record fairly instead of freezing, and how to write down why you decided.
Start free - Creating Screening Policies30 min
A written policy your board and your insurer will recognise, before they ask for one.
Start free - Volunteer Interviewing27 min
Pairs with the reference workbook: what to ask, and what a hesitation is telling you.
Start free - Youth Program Risk Management35 min
The policies behind the supervision audit — two-adult rules, ratios, and who enforces them.
Start free - Incident Reporting25 min
Writing what happened in language that holds up months later.
Start free - Crisis Management for Nonprofits34 min
The reporting on this page is largely a record of bad crisis response. Read this before you need it.
Start free
Where screening actually fits
We sell background checks, so it would be convenient for us to say screening solves this. It does not. Most people who harm children at camps have no criminal record when they are hired, which is exactly why the patterns above matter. What screening does is remove the cases you should never have to discover yourself, and confirm that the person in front of you is who they claim to be.
$5 per volunteer check
No per-seat subscription, so a seasonal roster does not need an annual contract.
Biometric identity verification
Confirms the person screened is the person who shows up on opening day.
FCRA-compliant workflow
Consent and adverse-action steps handled, so a fast season does not create a legal problem.
Questions camp directors ask
Does a background check prevent abuse at camp?
No — on its own it stops one specific thing: hiring someone whose record already shows a conviction. Most people who harm children at camps have no record at the time they are hired. Screening matters because it is the cheapest filter you have, but supervision rules, reference checks and a culture where staff report small things are what handle the rest.
Should camp volunteers be screened as well as paid staff?
Yes. Parent helpers, weekend volunteers, trip chaperones and returning alumni get the same access to children as paid counselors, and often less supervision because they are treated as guests. Screen anyone who will be with campers, and re-screen returning people on a set schedule rather than by memory.
What questions should I ask a camp reference?
Ask whether they would put the candidate alone with a child in their own program, how the candidate handled discipline, whether they ever had contact with children outside program hours, whether concerns were ever raised about boundaries or favouritism, and why they left. Ask the same set of every candidate so that a hesitation stands out. Our free reference check workbook ships the full script.
What are the warning signs of grooming at a summer camp?
Repeated one-on-one time out of sight, rules bent for one camper, gifts, private messaging or social media contact, secrecy asked of a child, and physical contact beyond policy. Any one of these can have an innocent explanation. The same adult appearing in several of them, or with several children, is what warrants a supervision conversation and documentation.
How much does it cost to screen a camp volunteer with VolunteerBadge?
$5 per check, including biometric identity verification so you know the person being screened is the person showing up. There is no per-seat subscription, so screening a seasonal roster does not require an annual contract.
What do I do if a staff member reports something small?
Write down what was observed, not what it might mean; tell the designated person the same day; and change the situation immediately — reassign the pairing, add a second adult, move the duty. If there is any suspicion a child has been harmed, your state reporting duties apply right away and are not satisfied by an internal note.
The videos on this page are third-party journalism and training, embedded from YouTube. They are not affiliated with VolunteerBadge and their inclusion is not a claim about any pending matter beyond what the reporting itself states. If you believe a child is in danger, contact law enforcement. In the United States the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-422-4453.
Explore more free resources
Calculators, templates & generators
Board-ready nonprofit policies, free
VolunteerBadge vs the alternatives
Background-check & volunteer guides
Screening built for nonprofits
Elder-care volunteer screening
8 free Excel workbooks for co-ops
120+ free courses & certs