Kettle Trains Group Counselors
Group Counselors received Mental Health First Aid training from former staff member and 2016 Coach's Award winner, Kettle!
We recognize the need to prepare our counselors to intervene when campers are in emotional distress. To that end, we brought Kettle, who is currently a certified Mental, Emotional, and Social Health First Aid Instructor, back to camp to train our counselors, so that they could better respond to children who need emotional help at camp.
Kettle was able to use the training and her experience at camp to make the training very practical for our counselors. She was also able, outside of her training, to speak with staff about what she did that was effective when she was a counselor at GAC.
You can read more about Kettle here, or listen to her on the GAC POG-Cast here.
Here's more information about Mental Health First Aid.
Among this year's leaders...
9 are former campers.
21 have spent five or more years at GAC.
9 are from other countries.
9 play guitar.
19 are under 30.
11 are over 30.
6 are current camp parents.
6 are teachers (or former teachers).
Throughout this week, GAC leaders are preparing for the arrival of counselors (Wednesday, June 12), preparing training sessions for the staff, and getting camp and program areas ready for camper arrival on June 16 (Shaver Specialty campers) and on June 23 (Session 1 campers).
Facilitating this year's training is Debby Winning, an HR specialist who worked for many years at Marriott and more recently has worked as a consultant for AIG, rolling out their customer service program. Debby has been part of the extended GAC family since 1999, when she first trained our leaders and helped us come up with our first leadership motto, "Spirit to Serve." This year's theme, decided upon by the team and in keeping with the camp-wide theme of 
