Wellness & Care

Chestnut Lake Camp is in the business of taking care of other people’s children. While your choice of Chestnut may have been focused on other aspects of camp life like our amazing programs, expansive facilities, or the way that we develop camp spirit and a special feeling of community, your child’s well-being is at the core of what we do each summer. While every camp has a similar burden, each camp also approaches the care of its campers differently.

At Chestnut, we prescribe to the idea that our care of children (and the staff who supports them) is in terms of holistic “wellness.” By our definition, a camper’s wellness includes their physical, mental, emotional, and social health needs. This encompasses the whole person who is with us in a fully immersive, 24/7 environment. Sometimes we will refer to the non-physical needs as MESH (Mental, Emotional, and Social Health). 

Our structure for supporting camper wellness has multiple dimensions:

COUNSELORS

Each cabin has 3-4 counselors – a combination of “General Counselors” who will travel with the campers throughout the entire day, and “Specialty Counselors” who will shift from being with their own campers during some or many of the daily/daytime activities to helping run specialty activities in athletics, arts, outdoor adventure, or waterfront – and these (mostly) 18-21 year-olds are the most important assets for protecting, supporting, and noticing the needs of your children throughout the summer. Counselors are talented, passionate, enthusiastic, bright, engaged, and will someday be great professionals and leaders in the real world. But we also embrace the fact that counselors are still adolescents, themselves, and while they will be the campers’ favorite people and no person at camp will have a more direct impact on the campers’ experience, they also need training and consistent, skilled, support. We spend time before and during the time that campers arrive designing and facilitating extensive training, mentorship, and performance management practices that elevate the work of our counselors each day.

ASSISTANT DIRECTORS & DIVISION LEADERS

The leaders on each Campus (Boys, Girls, or Varsity) who supervise counselors and build very meaningful relationships with the campers include Assistant Directors (or Directors) and Division Leaders. These adults have more life experience, are entrusted with more management and leadership responsibilities, and will often be key supports for the campers’ wellness, especially when a camper is struggling and their counselors need extra help. Some of these leaders have backgrounds or careers in education, psychology, or other relevant fields. Many of these Campus Leaders have spent prior summers at Chestnut or other summer camps.

On Girls Campus, the primary supervisor is Erica Lakind. Erica is a member of our year-round Director team and spends her summer focused on our rising 3rd-8th grade girls, their Division Leaders, counselors, and other staff supporting the kids on Girls Campus. On Boys Campus, the primary supervisor is Kyle Yahn. Kyle is a member of our year-round Director team and spends his summer focused on our rising 3rd-8th grade girls, their Division Leaders, counselors, and other staff supporting the kids on Boys Campus. Prior to the 2025 season, this supervisor’s role was called “Head Counselor”. On Varsity Campus, our Assistant Director who oversees all of our 9th/10th/11th-graders and their staff is Amy Winheld (a member of our year-round Director team). There is also a Varsity Director (9th/10th-grade teens) and LT Director (11th-grade teens in our Leadership Training program).

Division Leaders are assigned to the gender/grade groups on each of our Campuses. These adults directly supervise all of the counselors and campers in their Division.

WELLNESS TEAM

Wellness Coaches (along with one Wellness Coordinator) provide additional resources for counselors and leaders to work with campers in support of their wellness while at camp. They do not live with the children and have no supervisory responsibilities, but their age and experience are leveraged to help coach the staff to be able to elevate the attention to and successful interventions with concerns ranging from loneliness, homesickness, separation anxiety, social challenges, or any number of other issues.

Wellness Team members can spend time with individual campers as they will be at activities, at mealtimes, and are assigned to the different Campuses throughout each day to build relationships and observe, but their most important duty is to provide hands-on expertise as adults, parents, and/or professionals with backgrounds in a range of areas (this may include counseling, psychology, formal education, etc.) more directly to the staff that, in turn, will be able to work more effectively with the kids. This allows staff (like counselors, or Division Leaders) to gain insight and build their skills at the same time that the campers can be helped. Wellness Coaches have space to allow campers to have access to telehealth visits requested and arranged by parents. Wellness Coaches may sometimes be in touch with parents directly, but more often it will be our Assistant Directors, or Directors, who will be the best point-person for contact regarding how campers are doing throughout the summer.

MEDICAL TEAM

Our Medical Team is such a crucial part of wellness and the summer’s success. Our Head Nurse/Health Center Manager coordinates all services and communications at our air-conditioned, urgent-care facility at camp 24/7. The team features a Health Center Assistant and 4-7 nurses, plus a resident physician. All of these staff live on-site and we leverage this full complement of health professionals to address the physical wellness needs of our campers. The team administers a 24-hour schedule of coverage, and when needed, will leave the Health Center to address concerns around camp. Occasionally, Medical Team members will accompany campers for off-site programs.

Having a Medical Team AND a Wellness Team increases our capacity and creates a more specialized set of resources to help campers. Often, campers will turn up at the Health Center with concerns that are less physical and more emotional or social. In those cases, we can provide multiple options for support in a wrap-around manner. Our nurses (we usually have 6-7 in the First Session and 4-5 in the Second Session) bring experiences from schools, hospitals, or other settings and provide care, distribute medications, and also may speak with parents on the phone (or through email). We guide parents in our Handbook about how this works in the summer. Our physicians – who will each be with us for one 10-day rotation (we have 5 total physicians throughout the summer) – bring years of training and professional experience in areas like pediatrics and emergency medicine, among others. When needed, they will see campers, write prescriptions, communicate with parents, and address any emergencies.

Our Medical Team relies on parents sharing complete and comprehensive information through medical forms and other means before the campers arrive to ensure the continuity and quality of care. Chestnut Lake requires all families who have campers taking any prescription or OTC medication in pill form that will be needed at camp to register with CampMeds, allowing us to keep medication on hand and/or distribute those medications on a specific schedule to campers throughout the summer (see below).

FOOD SERVICES

Our Dining Hall is a critical hub of wellness and care for campers. Our Food Service Team works tirelessly to deliver our nut-free, well-balanced, nutritious, diverse, and kid-friendly menu of foods for three meals each day, an afternoon (“Moo Call”) snack, and a nighttime snack (Milk & Cookies). Meals are served in our air-conditioned, spacious, Dining Hall in two shifts. When in shifts, campers in 3rd through 6th grade will eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner first and the older campers/teens will eat second. Meals are served family-style (kitchen staff members deliver entrees/side dishes to the round tables where campers sit in their bunk groups), but there are also salad bars and buffet stations with many different options that can include a regular pasta station, sandwich bar, fruit, and many other items.

The nut-free policies at camp are followed in and outside of camp at all times, and we have the position of Specialty Foods Coordinator to ensure that every noted dietary restriction or food allergy is accommodated thoughtfully. Our Food Service Director leads a team of 20 staff members, and when they are not serving meals in the Dining Hall, they may be serving 1-2 outside cookouts/barbeques from the facility’s outdoor kitchen and seating in the Cookout Slope. Counselors sit with and supervise campers, with Division Leaders checking in, to make certain that campers are eating meals and maintaining good healthfulness throughout the summer.   

Here are key steps/reminders towards helping us provide the best wellness and care for your child this summer:

• Review, complete, and submit all health-related forms on time (First Session/Full Summer campers should have all health forms in before April 1st). There are forms for parents to handle themselves and one for a physician to sign off on. These – and the other medical forms – are critical to success. Please share everything possible about your child – we cannot do our best without all of the insight that could be applicable. These forms will be available in MyCLC’s “Forms & Documents” section.
• Take care of the Camper Information form ASAP, and please make sure to disclose everything you can about your child. These forms include many different aspects of your child’s personality and background, and we do not want camp to begin without having the opportunity to review and share (confidentially and carefully) any/all of the relevant information with the staff who will be caring for your child. This form will be available in MyCLC’s “Forms & Documents” section.
• Camper Information forms are where you can share information about dietary restrictions or food allergies, indicating (if necessary) your interest in an intake conversation with a member of our team. This is a crucial step, and if there are food-related needs, our Specialty Foods Coordinator will also be in touch as the summer approaches or during the session if there are additional questions.
• Does your child take any prescription or OTC medication in pill form that may/will need to be provided to them while they are at camp? If so, it is imperative that you review the “CampMeds” letter in MyCLC and – once you have reviewed the protocols and requirements – register for the service well in advance of the summer. This document is available in MyCLC’s “Forms & Documents” section. It is also necessary that all information regarding medications is included in your child’s online Health History form. 

Our goal is to care for your child as if they are our own, and we are open to your questions and insight at any time to help us in our pursuit of happiness for them at camp this summer.

 

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