Consent Workshops for Camps
If you want your camp counsellors and staff to have healthy boundaries with campers and notice camper-on-camper abuse, your staff must also have great boundaries with each other. Child harm reduction and sexual abuse prevention isn’t enough.
You are in the unique position to give the kind of support and training to your staff that they need, want, and will help them be successful in their interpersonal relationships at camp, and beyond. This is one more way you can support the growth of your leaders.
All camp workshops are interactive, frank, and direct with what is expected from staff in their role at camp, and how they can directly impact the camp experience for others. Workshops begin with teaching about healthy boundaries and consent, so they can better model the behaviour for their campers. Workshops will connect the dots between their behaviour, what campers see, and how they need to be consistent in their consent and boundary practices.
Sample Consent Workshop for Camps
Our curriculum has different sections that can be adapted and pieced together for your camp staff training. Each section has the option of activities in addition to the presentation.
Workshop topics include:
Consent Theory
What is consent
Consent Models
Defining Boundaries
Harm Reduction
Sexual assault and sexual abuse
Identifying grooming and predatory behaviours
Identifying coercive behaviours
Identifying concerning behaviour in campers
Healthy vs unhealthy relationships
Consent in Practice
Language of consent
Verbal vs non verbal cues
Trauma and trauma responses
Workplace Specific
Intervention
Workplace policies and procedures
Reporting structures
Consent Programs
Programs that help teach consent to campers
Optional add on: program planners to provide to your staff
Optional add on: program brainstorm session with your staff
Consent Workshops for Overnight Camps
Overnight camp is a uniquely magical experience, and counsellors can directly impact if your campers come back next year. Not only do leadership staff need to be concerned with keeping campers safe, you also want to make sure your staff are having consensual experiences throughout the summer, and combat the persistent hookup culture that thrives in overnight settings.
Our overnight camp workshops will ensure your staff know how to create a camp culture that models boundary best practices that will keep campers safe from predatory behaviour, how to ensure consent is happening with each other as well as with campers, and how to intercede in camper on camper boundary violations.
Click here to see a sample consent workshop training for an overnight camp.
Consent Workshops for Day Camps
Day camps have a distinct culture from overnight camps. While some day camps are isolated amongst farmland, many day camps are located in a community centre or city building. The location of camp results in different daily procedures and expectations of your staff, and different cultural norms around workplace relationships, including the relationships with other, non-camp affiliated building staff and visitors.
Consent and boundary workshops for day camps focus on building staff’s general knowledge and language around consent, workplace policy and reporting procedures, as well as sections on identifying camper abuse at camp and at home.
Click here to see a sample consent workshop training for a day camp.
Faith Based Camps
Our founder has ample experience working in a variety of religious contexts. All content can be adapted to fit with the values and needs of your particular faith based camp. Workshops are easily amended to include concepts from your particular faith and denomination. See the FAQ for more details. If you have particular requests, please include information when you book your consultation
“Rae has been incredible to work with and has helped drastically improve our consent culture at camp through her staff training sessions. We started our initial call with a list of changes we wanted to make in our camp culture. Rae guided us with specific questions that helped us pinpoint the core message we wanted our staff to take away from the session. Our goal was to create a sex-positive space with clear guidelines on appropriate behavior for staff in their personal relationships, while also teaching counselors about proper conduct with and around campers. We wanted to ensure our counselors felt confident in handling any potential boundary situations, both as leaders and peers.
Rae truly listened to our needs and delivered a workshop that had all 150 staff fully engaged and participating. She understood that our counselors needed more than just a presentation—they needed activities to keep them engaged and learning. Rae arrived early to meet the counselors, get a sense of their knowledge base, and understand the camp culture, and she stayed late to answer any lingering questions.
Our counselors said it was the most direct and relevant workshop they’d ever attended on consent. Less than a month later, we’re already seeing the language she introduced being implemented by our staff. If you’re looking for a consent workshop, Rae is the person to go to, as someone who is a sex educator and understands the camp setting!”
-Marly Bromstein, Development & Community Engagement Associate, Camp George
