Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
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.