The Program Development Process: Developing Optimal Youth Development Environments through the Camp Experience

Many camp professionals find themselves continually challenged to document the value of the camp experience for youth. Funders want to hold camps accountable to their goals, boards want to see evidence that camp programs result in benefits in line with the organization\u27s mission, and directors themselves want to know if they achieved the desired outcomes as well the most effective best practices . The American Camp Association (ACA) teamed with Youth Development Strategies, Inc. (YDSI) in a project to look at how campers assessed their camp experiences on outcomes that contribute to positive youth development. The purpose of this study was to establish a baseline of supports and opportunities for youth development offered through the camp experience as defined by the Community Action Framework for Youth Development (Gambone, Klem, & Connell, 2002)

Development and Application of a Camper Growth Index (CGI-C)

Many people know about the value of organized camp experiences for youth, but few instruments measure camp experiences relative to positive youth development. Over the past century, most studies have found positive outcomes on a variety of dimensions, but these studies have used mainly convenience nonrandornized samples, different criteria, and a variety of instruments in their assessments. The purpose of this paper is to present evidence about the psychometric properties of a scale specifically designed to measure youth development outcomes through camp experiences