Camp Starfish’s core programs provide a 1 “to” 1 (also known as 1:1) direct care staff-to-camper ratio. This means that at the meal table, there are four campers and four staff members. If there are five campers living in a bunk, five staff also live in the bunk. If six campers are playing a game of soccer, six staff are playing soccer with them!

One “on” one is different. Starfish is not 1 on 1. One-on-one means that a specific child is assigned a specific adult for the duration of their experience. Examples of 1 on 1 in a school setting include a para-professional or individual aide assigned to one particular child for the entire day. This is not the model utilized at Starfish.

The staff at camp work as a team to take care of everyone. Campers often grow to prefer one counselor over another for any number of reasons, as is the case regardless of the ratio at any camp. But, unlike if they were paired 1-on-1, a camper is never “stuck” spending a majority of their experience with one adult. Starfish’s 1-to-1 instead allows camper and staff relationships to form more organically and allows campers to practice their social skills with many different individuals.

Please note that although Starfish is 1:1, campers are never alone with just one staff member.

In general, we have found that one session of camp can be of great benefit to campers, while spending the entire summer at camp can have the unintended effect of negating some of the wonderful work that campers do in the early weeks of their attendance; this is naturally due to the highly-structured nature of our 24/7 group-living environment that can become tiring and repetitive after multiple weeks of camp attendance. We consider each request for multiple session attendance on an individual basis, considering a camper’s needs, any history of previous attendance at camps (including Starfish), the needs and requests of the family/parent/guardian/agency, and balancing those needs with that of the camp community. We reserve the right not to enroll campers for more sessions than, in our professional opinion and after considering all of the above factors, we feel is appropriate.

For campers who do attend multiple sessions, we require the signing (by parents/guardians) of a Multi-Session Agreement. This helps ensure that we are all on the same page about expectations and responsibilities for multi-session attendance.