Pine Cove is committed to the safety of all campers. Our comprehensive safety plan covers staff screening, abuse prevention, weather safety, medical care, and activity safety. Pine Cove’s goal is for every parent to feel confident with their child spending a fun and SAFE week at camp!
“Seriously, we continue to come back year-after-year because we believe so strongly in the fact that you run a quality, safe camp where our children can grow to be great disciples of Christ.”
Julie
6th Grade Camper Parent
We weave abuse prevention into our entire camp environment, through training, monitoring, and feedback systems. Our entire staff undergoes extensive training on the rules and procedures we have in place to prevent any type of abuse. Everyone must pass a test on these abuse prevention concepts.
At Pine Cove, we believe your child is a precious gift, and we treat that trust as a sacred responsibility. Many of us are parents or grandparents ourselves, and we understand that peace of mind is the foundation of a great summer; that’s why we maintain an uncompromising standard of safety through a rigorous, multi-layered strategy from our third-party safety partner, Praesidium, that starts on day one.
Praesidium Accreditation: Praesidium is an expert in the field of youth safety and a national leader. Pine Cove has been accredited by them since 2010, earning their highest level of accreditation for abuse prevention. Praesidium’s proven safety equation includes a rigorous risk assessment to review and scrutinize twenty-four safety standards within our ministry including: policies, screening and selection, training, monitoring and supervision, consumer participation, feedback systems, responding and administrative systems. After being assessed against 110 best practice components, Pine Cove was accredited by Praesidium and is an industry leader in abuse prevention safety in the camping industry.
Some important safety measures include:
Reporting: When issues are reported, our priority is always the safety and protection of the child. In any instance of suspected abuse, Pine Cove is a mandatory reporter and we are trained to let parents know what the camper has shared, and report directly to the Department of Family and Protective Services as well as the police if needed. Furthermore, we make it abundantly clear to all staff that we will take legal action to the full extent of the law for any malicious intentions to harm a camper, with no exceptions.
Issues can also be reported to us by:
Each of our overnight youth camps has a licensed nurse and all of our camps have health assistants on duty 24 hours a day. All physical camp properties have an on-site medical clinic and are within twenty minutes of a hospital. Additionally, all medications are administered to campers and staff by nursing professionals.
To ensure the safety of all campers, no medications are allowed in a cabin or anywhere outside of the health centers, except for rescue inhalers, diabetic supplies, and epi-pens. For more information on medication at camp, check out our helpful guide. Hand washing is another important part of our illness prevention strategy. We require campers to wash their hands before meals and provide numerous handwashing stations and hand sanitizer to help keep germs at bay.
“We want to ensure that every one of our staff knows that Pine Cove is serious about our mission and that we have an unquestioned safety culture.”
Craig “Dutch” Langemeier
President, Pine Cove
Pine Cove does not take lightly our calling to find the best and safest staff. All applicants must complete an extensive application, undergo a face-to-face interview, submit at least three references, and pass a background check. Every staff gets background checked every year. Pine Cove hires less than 30% of all applicants.
We love "liquid sunshine," but we don't take any chances with the weather! Pine Cove utilizes Perry Weather Alerts to monitor all vital weather conditions in real time. This system provides advance notice of National Weather Service alerts—including tornado watches, severe thunderstorms, lighting strikes, flood, and wind or hail warnings—and enables us to notify our staff promptly if there’s any need to seek shelter or respond in another way. Our senior counselors, nurses, and full-time staffers are all equipped with cell phones or walkie talkies, enabling quick communication across camp.
