Katherine de Castro

Staff Retention in Residential Summer Camps: Understanding organizational

 culture and place attachment within two New Hampshire programs.

The background behind Katherine's project stemmed from her
interest in the outdoor education field combined with her extensive
involvement in summer camps. Having written an excellent paper in her
RMP 668—Youth Culture and Leadership course that examined the
phenomenon of place attachment, Katherine wanted to examine place
attachment in relation to summer camps.

This project examined the concept of staff retention through
studying camp culture in 2 New Hampshire summer camps. In light of
societal changes and the popularity of camps in the US, parents have
greater expectations of camps to provide their children a safe
environment and give them a sense of security. Thus the emphasis of
camps to employ qualified staff has increased. Fulfilling this duty
will reduce difficulties if more research is achieved in the area of
staff retention. To address the issue of staffing, this study sought to
gain an extensive understanding of the culture and attachments to place
that influence quality staff to return to two New Hampshire summer
camps. It also attempted to provide a contextual description of the key
factors which cultivate culture in a particular camp.