CONNECT
The ACC provides the chance to connect with camp professionals and experts throughout the province.
LEARN
The conference features a variety of sessions led by experts in their field. Explore ways to enhance your business and program practices.
CONTRIBUTE
Make your voice heard! Participate in the ACA AGM and CCI Annual Updates Meeting. Share ideas and practices.
CELEBRATE
Celebrate your industry colleagues at the ACA Awards.
Keynote: Kathleen Hilchey
From Chaos to Calm: Navigating difficult conversations at camp
As senior staff and directors at camp, by the time the conversation gets to you, it’s pretty safe to say that it’s going to be a hard one. In this keynote, Kathleen Hilchey, a former camp professional turned conflict specialist and mediator will share with you her best tips on managing difficult conversations with staff and campers. Conflict is a highly-charged experience – you will learn not only the strategies to have the (best) tough conversation, but tips on how to decrease stress throughout the experience. Through storytelling, hands-on activities, and humour, Kathleen will leave you with tools that you can immediately bring back to camp.
Breakout Session Information
Breakout Session:Campers First!: A Staff Training and Certification Model
This workshop will give participants the opportunity to get to know the Outdoor Council of Canada. You will learn who we are and what we do and, in addition, become familiar with our outdoor leadership certification program. Our seven certification courses (Hiking, Paddling, Overnight, Winter, Equine, Supervisor, Instructor) and two training modules (Maps, Compass) provide a comprehensive staff training program in the foundations of outdoor leadership for all your summer camp and outdoor centre staff members. In this session you will not only learn about the FL Program and its participant- centred philosophy of programming and leadership, but also get to sample some of our activities, case studies and other program materials that make up our curriculum.
Breakout Session: Q&A with Child and Family Services
Bring your questions about Children and Family Services to a Child Intervention Practitioner. Topics will include when to call about concerns for a child, and what happens after that call is made.
Breakout Session: Moving Team from I to We
We know that to accomplish the mission of our camp we need amazing staff. Staff who are passionate, love kids, and want to make a difference. However, for our camp to make its greatest impact we need staff to be a team. Not a team like a ‘bowling team’ but like a well-functioning hockey team. In our time together we will look at the importance of being a cohesive team, discuss foundational elements of a healthy team, and provide tools we can use to move our team from “I to We”.
Breakout Session: Finding Your Strong & Kind Voice: Decrease conflict and find lasting solutions
This activity-based workshop will give you the time and space to find solutions to some of your most complex problems. Kathleen’s Three Ways to Conflict Model will help you understand how you are responding when complex conflict arises, and how to tweak your responses to soothe instead of inflame a problem. Kathleen will guide you through an exercise that you can use again and again when faced with challenging situations. The goal? Showing up with confidence even during highly-charged moments.
Breakout Session: First A Follower – Responding to God’s Call
Every leader is first a follower, and the call to lead is a call to follow. Discipleship always precedes leadership. As ministry leaders, we must come alongside the emerging and maturing leaders in our ministries to help them respond to God’s call on their lives as well. In this session, we will examine how Canadian ministries have been doing this to develop the leaders in their ministries.
Breakout Session: How to Sustain Seasonal Staff
Bradon Pihowich has been involved in Camp Ministry since 2011. He has garnered experience and knowledge through several forms of education, the most formal being a B.A in Child and Youth Counselling.
Bradon melds the freedom and creativity of play with the structure of traditional counseling methods, allowing for a unique combination of tactics.
Bradon believes that focusing on the health and care of the staff and setting reasonable expectations can create a more sustainable future for Summer Camps.
