I was speaking with my friend’s daughter the other day about her experience as a counselor-in-training (CIT) at a local Jewish day camp when she gave me this frank assessment of what happened last summer:

“They called us CITs, but they didn’t really teach us anything about being counselors. They kind of ignored us.”

Unfortunately, no one at her camp followed through with the “training” part of being a counselor-in-training, an aspect of the program she had hoped to experience. As a result, she and her friends are currently not inspired to go back and serve as counselors this summer.

This is a shame, especially because the thousands of teens who serve as CITs at Jewish camps each year are the teens we most want to serve as camp counselors and camp leaders, eventually going on to become leaders in the wider Jewish community. 

Last year, my Moving Traditions colleagues Pam Barkley and Eve Beger adapted one of Moving Traditions educational programs to serve the needs of the CIT program at Camp Zeke, a vibrant Jewish overnight camp in Pennsylvania. The program centered on personal growth, relating to others and taking on communal and social responsibilities; it also gave participants both psychological and Jewish lenses to apply to personal and ethical questions. As CITs working with younger campers, the participants had ongoing, facilitated gatherings where they could reflect on their work.  

At the end of the summer, the camp professionals who worked with these CITs told us that the program gave these teens a structured way to unpack what they were learning about themselves and others, and a forum where they had a voice that informed camp culture. CITs were interested in identifying which jobs and roles they could handle themselves, what they should say when boundaries are broken and when to ask for help. In short, they saw themselves as capable and craved responsibility. The educational program empowered them to care for the wellbeing of younger campers; and as a result, they left camp that summer inspired to be future counselors.

Today’s teens and young adults have unprecedentedly high levels of anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. According to a growing number of psychological researchers, this generation is in desperate need of offline experiences where they can gain independence, fail, receive feedback and grow. Caring for children is a perfect vehicle for these experiences. According to psychologist Lisa Miller, author of The Awakened Brain: “For people at high risk for depression, altruism and love of neighbor are prospectively protective against depressive symptoms… [W]hen we activate altruism, we engage neural functioning essential to our personal wellness and thriving — and to the wellness and thriving of all.” 

Even though this generation of teens may need extra psychological supports to feel safe and protected at camp, they also need real-life experiences where they can care for others and gain independence by being given responsibilities and held accountable for meeting them. 

We know that many of the camp staff members who supervise CITs in day camps and sleepaway camps (who range in age from 13-17, depending on the context) are only a handful of years older than the teens that they are training. At many camps, CITs are supervised by college students with little management experience. That being said, these students have been chosen specifically for their roles because they have demonstrated good instincts about childcare, and they possess the people skills needed to guide a team. We know that with the right set of structured training materials, these young staff members can make a huge impact on the CITs.  

For all these reasons, we expanded on what we learned from Camp Zeke to create a series of training materials for CITs that includes sessions on noticing others, giving feedback, de-escalating tension, resolving conflict, problem-solving and establishing clear boundaries – all basic skills critical for childcare. These have been paired with Jewish teachings uplifting the values of altruism, empathy and communal responsibility. We hope they will learn to appreciate the Talmudic sage Rabbi Hanina’s teaching that “learning from your students” is a reward in and of itself.  

This summer we are ramping up, starting with 22 Jewish summer camps that are using this new program with their CITs. We hope that this educational intervention will enrich the lives of teens who were isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic, missed out on critical years of school and summer camp and maybe did not have such great role models as counselors. We have faith that this generation of teens is not only capable of caring for younger campers but that they will lead, support and sustain others in the future.

Rabbi Daniel Brenner is the vice president of education at Moving Traditions.