Into the woods

Are children safe at Massachusetts summer camps?

by Sarah McNaught

When Lori Bennett visited her younger sister at camp two summers ago, she was alarmed by what she saw.

On August 9, 1997, Bennett's sister and three other girls were volunteering to help out in the kitchen at Camp Mitton, in Brewster. Bennett, a former counselor for at-risk girls at DARE Family Services in Somerville, says that she saw adult kitchen staff chase the girls around the cooking area, pulling their pants down, spraying them with hoses, and grabbing and groping them. She spoke to the camp's director, and he assured her that he would take action. As a result, campers were no longer allowed to work in the kitchen.

But just two days after the kitchen incident, Bennett's sister, who was then 13, was molested by an employee who climbed into her sleeping bag while she was watching a video with a group of other campers. The staffer who was supposed to monitor the kids was sitting at the front of the room with her back to them. Bennett says all her sister could do was lie there silently and cry until the movie ended, when she told a counselor. An investigation by the Department of Social Services later revealed that the man had a criminal record and, at the time of the incident, was serving probation for other charges.

Bennett later testified before the Massachusetts House of Representatives in support of legislation that its proponents say would have helped protect children from such incidents. The bill died in committee last month, however, and critics say that kids who attend camp this summer could still face unacceptable risks at the hands of abusive or incompetent caretakers.

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With the end of the school year now in sight, parents are beginning to sign their children up for everything from summer basketball leagues to overnight camps. Most parents believe that when they send their children to a summer camp, they'll be as safe as they are at a day-care center. But that is not always the case.

CITYSCAPE

Road rageous

Day-care centers are overseen by the Office of Child Care Services (OCCS), a 173-member state agency that strictly monitors the safety of the facilities and the qualifications of their employees. OCCS also investigates any complaint of abuse or neglect that is filed against a day-care center. Summer camps, on the other hand, are regulated by the Division of Community Sanitation, a tiny agency within the state Department of Public Health (DPH). The division's three-person staff sets sanitation and safety standards for all camps, but it relies on local health boards to license and investigate them.

Two years ago, Richard Rice, a Northampton psychiatrist whose son had been molested at camp, began fighting to change that system. He worked with Representative Ellen Story (D-Amherst) on legislation that would have made OCCS responsible for licensing overnight camps that serve children under six, and for investigating and keeping records of all complaints of abuse or neglect. But the American Camping Association, a trade group that represents the camping industry, objected that camps could not afford to meet the standards set by OCCS -- which would, for example, have required all staffers to be professionally trained in CPR and child care. As a result of the industry's pressure, the bill never came to a vote.

Instead, the Division of Community Sanitation has changed its own regulations. Now, the state's more than 700 camps will tighten hiring standards and run background checks on staff and volunteers to determine whether they have criminal histories. And a stronger effort will be made to inform parents that camps must be licensed; in the past, children have been injured at unlicensed camps that the state didn't even know existed.

Concerned parents say that's not enough. Even under the new rules, anyone who is 17 or over and has graduated from high school is eligible to work at a camp. Even if such people have no criminal records, critics say, they are not necessarily competent to supervise children. In addition, the sanitation division still relies completely on local health boards to license summer camps and is not responsible for investigating or even keeping track of complaints. And some parents say that the local health boards sometimes aren't even aware of their responsibilities.

Howard Wensley, the director of the Division of Community Sanitation, admits that the new mandate for background reports, known as criminal offender record information (CORI), may not be enough: "CORI checks will come up with nothing if offenders have never been caught before." But, he says, "we don't know what more can be done."

What's more, says Richard Rice, there will be no way to tell whether the checks are cutting down on abuse and neglect, because it's not clear how common such problems are to begin with. "No one monitors such incidents, so there is literally no way of keeping track," he complains. A DSS official told Rice that "we receive all reports of sexual abuse by caretakers; unfortunately, we do not compile statistics for such a specific category as summer-camp staff."

Rice, however, has sent more than 1000 letters to local police departments, juvenile-court judges, DSS offices, and schools around the state asking for help in compiling records of abuse and neglect complaints against camps. More than 100 agencies have responded, and Rice has also received more than 60 police reports concerning such incidents.

In addition, Rice is working with others to draft new legislation that is similar to the original proposal but would require certification or training for all camp employees and would apply to camps that serve children of all ages.

Wensley argues that Rice is merely on a personal crusade fueled by his own experiences as a father. But Philip Dzialo, principal of the Mohawk Trail Regional High School in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, says that Rice is one of many parents and child-care professionals concerned about the safety of summer camps.

Dzialo counts himself among that group. Last July, his son Adam, then 12, was trapped underwater for 30 minutes during a botched river-rescue exercise at an unlicensed summer camp sponsored and staffed by Greenfield Community College.

Adam, wearing a life jacket and high-top sneakers, had been one of 12 campers participating in the activity. Two counselors were supposed to be supervising them, but one decided to leave. Midway through the exercise, says Dzialo, Adam panicked and put his feet down to slow himself. His sneaker got caught and he was submerged in four feet of water, just 10 feet from shore. The nearest counselor was 200 feet away. Adam survived the accident, but he cannot speak or voluntarily move his limbs.

"My wife is home with him all day taking care of him," says a distraught Dzialo. "Those people who sit in those state offices don't know my son, never mind perform their jobs in a way that would protect his young life. Now my son cannot run or play or even speak, because of a camp that was supposed to supplement those very activities."

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.