Children’s day camps: Attend at your own risk
As summer kicks off, more than a million California children are gearing up for horseback riding, swimming, archery, computer coding, and hip hop day camps. As parents scout out fun activities for their kids, most are likely unaware of the risks.
Unlike child care facilities and schools, children’s day camps are not required to conduct employee background checks, be licensed by the state, require CPR certification or report injuries or deaths to the state. No state agency conducts inspections for child safety, audits lifeguard certifications or reviews safety plans for activities that include zip-lining, swimming and shooting guns.
Doug Forbes and his late wife Elena Matyas didn’t know this when they dropped their daughter Roxie off at the Summerkids camp in Altadena one morning in June of 2019.
Less than an hour later they were racing toward the same hospital in Pasadena where Roxie was born. Their daughter had drowned in the camp pool. She was 6 years old.
Only as the couple sought answers about her final minutes of life did they discover the lack of oversight for children’s day camps in California. They filed an ongoing lawsuit against the camp for wrongful death and began advocating for state officials to mandate regulations. The camp denies that it was negligent.
“What we found out was that nobody is watching over these camps,” Forbes said. “Millions of children are at operations that are completely unlicensed.”
There are no statistics on how many camps there are or how many children attend each year. There also is no data on how many kids are injured, abused or die at day camps because the camps do not have to report those statistics.
The American Camp Association, a camp membership organization, estimates there are more than 700 day camps in California that enroll more than 1.2 million kids each summer. Day camps run for weeks or months during the summer and sometimes during school breaks. Many also offer before and after care to accommodate parents’ work schedules.
Regulations proposed
At the end of May, the state Assembly passed Assembly Bill 1737 to create some oversight for day camps — legislation carried by Pasadena Democratic Assemblymember Chris Holden in response to what happened to Roxie. Its fate is now in the Senate.
California can’t have a group of “children who are susceptible to great bodily injury and potential death,” Holden said. “It would be totally irresponsible for us to continue operating this way as a state knowing what we know and the great harm that has happened to children.”
California is one of about a dozen states that do not regulate day camps, according to Holden’s office. Most states, including New York, have regulations in place and some cities require camp operators to attend city-run orientations and follow extensive rules.
Holden’s bill would require all day camps to register with the state Department of Social Services, conduct background checks for all staff and require staff be trained as “mandated reporters,” people legally required to report suspicions of abuse. It would also require non-government camps with certain activities like ziplining, archery, river rafting and riflery to submit their operational and emergency plans.
Under the bill, the Department of Social Services would also conduct random, unannounced inspections of all children’s camps annually. The bill exempts government-run camps from most requirements.
Currently, the proposal places oversight responsibility with the California Department of Social Services, which oversees child care throughout California. Originally, oversight of day camps was going to fall under the Department of Public Health but that was changed last week. Holden said neither agency wants to take this on.
Both agencies refused requests for interviews. In email responses, both departments said they don’t oversee day camps because day camps are not defined in state statute. State law only defines “organized camps,” which are overnight camps where kids stay five nights or more. These fall under the purview of the state Department of Public Health, which leaves oversight to local counties. The state does not require the counties to report anything about the camps.
Originally, Holden’s bill included licensing, regular inspections and a designated health supervisor. Those requirements were removed from the bill after lobbying by camp advocates and organizations representing county officials, as well as after meetings with the state departments of Public Health and Social Services. Now, the bill includes registration, random inspections, background checks for all staff and, depending on the type of activities a camp offers, the submission of operational and emergency plans.
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