Mr. KURMAN. If the States in the United States had the legislation that the State of Michigan has, the chances are very, very, very remote that I would ever even have to appear here. I feel if that, the vast bulk of tragedies that have happened, it has been cut down appreciably and Michigan deserves the utmost respect and I feel they should get it and I wish other States would adopt their code which actually is protecting everybody.

Mr. EscH. We hoped that in the week ahead we can work cooperatively with the chairman meaning to bring out meaningful legislation and in Michigan we are going to continue to have tragedies certainly but we want to minimize the tragedies and the incidents involved and I, for one, won't thank you today for coming here, I will rather thank you if and when that bill is signed this year. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KURMAN. I hope so and I want to thank you very much.

Mr. DANIELS. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Sarasin-any questions to ask?

Mr. SARASIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kurman, I would like to thank you for coming here today. That is not only for your testimony today, but what you have provided to this committee during your many years of dedication to this effort. I think that you and perhaps you alone, have been the one leading light in this situation to wake the public up and make them aware of the very serious problems of which they had no prior knowledge unless they had some personal involvement.

I would like to ask a question with specific reference to the legislation. I know you feel very strongly that we need the legislation, and I fully agree with you as I cosponsored it, but do you have any problem with the specific bill that we have before us?

Mr. KURMAN. No. As far as I am concerned, I am not a lawyer; I don't pretend to be. I have looked at the Senate bill and I want to give credit to Senator Ribicoff for at least picking this thing up and going with it at a time when nobody would even touch it, but I feel that the House bill right now, as it stands, the Daniels bill, the Peyser bill, which is a bipartisan bill, and I am not interested in the politics of this thing, is the bill that will do the trick. I feel it is the ideal bill. That is what I would like to see happen.

Mr. EscH. Thank you very much, Mr. Kurman.

I wish we had more time, but we are now under rum call on the floor of the House.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KURMAN. Thank you.

bell for a quo

Mr. DANIELS. Again, Mr. Kurman, thank you very much for your testimony and for coming here today.

The committee is through with today's hearing and we will convene tomorrow morning in this room at 10 a.m.

[Whereupon, the committee recessed at 12:30 p.m., to reconvene at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 16, 1974.]

YOUTH CAMP SAFETY ACT

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1974

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dominick V. Daniels, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.

Present: Representatives Daniels and Sarasin.

Staff members: Daniel H. Krivit, counsel; Joe Alviani, assistant counsel; Alexandra Kisla, clerk; Denny Medlin, legislative assistant, and Yvonne Franklin, minority legislative associate.

Mr. DANIELS. The Select Subcommittee on Labor will come to order. We continue with the hearing this morning on youth camp safety. Our first witness is Mr. James Feehery, Michigan State Department of Social Service, Director of Camping Service.

STATEMENT OF JAMES FEEHERY, DIRECTOR OF CAMPING SERVICES, MICHIGAN STATE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES

Mr. FEEHERY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I. frankly, will stick probably fairly close to my written statement. However, I was appalled at some of the things I heard yesterday that are happening in some of the camps in States even where there is licensing.

In Michigan today, a camp operating 5 or more days servicing five or more school-age children apart from their parents, relatives, or legal guardian is required to be regulated as a children's camp. If a camp has pre-school-aged children, it must have a separate program for those children and obtain a child care center license.

Additionally, in March of this year a new child care licensing act, Act No. 116, Public Acts of 1973, became law. This act includes the regulation of governmental as well as privately administered camps. In other words, prior to the passage of this act, governmental camps were not regulated, although we did give many of them courtesy inspections or evaluations; however, they were not regulated. Therefore, all children attending camps in the State of Michigan are afforded protection by law.

Children's camp licensing dates back to 1939. Actually, there were some licensed in our registration list about then; however, it was not until 1944 by the enactment of Act No. 47-Public Act 1944-when the department of social services was charged with the responsibility for regulating nongovernmental camps that the law was enforced.

At that time the administrative rules for camps was vague and, although they included general child care concerns, they were geared primarily to the area of sanitation.

From 1944 until 1960 there were few changes in the rules. In 1960, because of an increase in serious accidents, some fatal, the rules were rewritten to place greater emphasis on safety in the areas of hazardous program activities as well as general child care and sanitation, and incidentally, there was also a part in the law that did say that the camps should have a fire inspection, but funds were not available for that and unless it was a serious matter, unless our consultants felt it was something serious, the camps did not get a routine fire inspection. This resulted in a noticeable decrease in accidents and fatalities, especially on the waterfront.

Some additional rules were updated between 1960 and 1971. For instance, the rule may say there shall be a water safety instructor in charge of swimming activities at a camp. Well, many camps did not interpret this as the water safety instructor had to be on the waterfront, so we had to have "at all times be on the waterfront" and things like that. They were not, however, specific and did not include enforceable areas in fire safety and sanitation by the licensing

agency.

In other words, there were guidelines in these areas. But not really the licensing agency itself I think would have a very difficult time if we were challenging on some of those rules in those areas.

In 1973 the rules for chldren's camps were completely rewritten and divided into three sections: General provisions, fire safety provisions, and sanitation provisions. The general provision section covers administration; supervision; staffing; site, facilities, and equipment; care of children; health supervision; nutrition and food service; waterfront supervision; records and reports; and transportation.

The other two sections I think are reasonably self-explanatory. All resident camps in Mihcigan now have or will be getting a fire inspection. At this time we have not scheduled day camps and we will as soon as we are able to get all of the resident camps.

The department of social services administers the licensing program with assistance from the department of State police, fire marshal division; and State and county health departments. Evaulations are performed while the camp is in operation by licensing consultants from the department of social services and inspections of site and facilities are conducted annaully by the fire marshal and the county health department. A report of evaluation and inspection is then sent to the department of social services where a final decision is made on the licensure by the supervisor of camping services. The camp operator is informed of this decision and receives a copy of all reports.

With over 200,000 children attending some 900 camps in Michigan, the competency of the licensing staff performing the actual onsite evaluation is very important. By having experienced consultants, the quality of child care in camps is being constantly upgraded and continuity is maintained in the overall licensing pro

gram.

The present staff consists of 14 camp consultants possessing at least master's degrees in education or a related field, a professional background which includes a minimum of two camp seasons of administration in a children's camp and permanent full-time employment as an administrator or supervisor in a children's organization. In other words, they work for us in the summer. They are hired on what we call a permanent intermittent basis. For instance, in the Upper Peninsula, if somebody writes to me and asks, they want to start a camp and we feel it is quite expensive to send somebody from Lansing up there, I have a man who lives in the Upper Peninsular who is in a school system and he can go ahead and we will pay him, because they are hired all year around on this permanent intermittent basis and make arrangements with the camp operator to look over his program, the site, and make a decision on whether he feels we should consider him for licensing.

Because camps operate primarily in the summertime, all but one of the consultants are professional educators in a university or public school system. I think we have three doctors of education or philosophy on our staff.

This arrangement has proven so mutually satisfactory that the 14 consultants employed in 1973 are returning this year. The average tenure for a consultant is approximately 4 years.

This is an important aspect of the Michigan licensing procedure. Our personnel is qualified to be competent consultants who can offer a service to the camps beyond determining qualification for license. In other words, we try to avoid going in there with a policeman's hat. They know that is what we are there for, but in the last few years I noticed a real feeling of friendliness with the camp operators and in their comments about the consultants.

Until 1962, inspection and evaluation of camps were performed by child welfare workers in each county. This system provided a minimum of service to camps since most of the county workers seldom had any experience in camping, yet were assigned to inspect and evaluate camps. There was little consultive role as far as total program was concerned.

In 1962, the licensing of camps was assumed in part by graduate students in the department scholarship program working on their master's degrees in social work. In general the students did a fair job. In fact, some of them did a very good job, although it was seen as a temporary position and there was little desire to identify with camping or with the consultative aspects of the responsibility.

Another problem we found was very seldom did we get these people back for the following year and we feel it takes nearly a third of a camping season, I don't care how much experience a person has in running a camp, before they can go into a camp and give what we consider a good evaluation and good consultation.

In 1965, we were licensing 900 camps. At this time a move was made in the direction of employing school administrators who had camping administrative experience and who, because of the nature of their full-time employment, were available for summer work. The caliber of consultant we have been able to obtain by this move has added continuity to our program and enhanced our image in the

eyes of camp directors and the public. The new consultants are able to perform a true service in consultation as well as that of an inspector of children's camps. They lend continuity by returning annually and ably represent our department professionally by their maturity, background, and work habits.

We believe that licensing need not be seen as a threat or as a harassment; it ought not lead to fear of closure. Last year nearly 900 camps were licensed: 93 percent received onsite evaluations; 816 of the camps received full licenses; 45 were placed on a provisional basis. Only seven were denied licenses pending meeting the minimum standards.

Mr. DANIELS. Does that conclude your testimony, Mr. Feehery?

Mr. FEEHERY. No. I am very much in favor of your bill and I really think it is needed, if nothing else, from some of the things I have heard yesterday.

Mr. DANIELS. You were in attendance here yesterday?

Mr. FEEHERY. Yes.

Mr. DANIELS. Tell the committee what you heard and what you think that has impressed you most?

Mr. FEEHERY. Well, some of the things that I heard were the age of some of the staff members involved where some of these accidents occurred and also the lack of supervision in certain areas, the death rate that appeared or seemed apparent in certain States and from what I can gather the complete lack of a camp having to do certain things. In other words, to have minimum standards, let us say.

I am in favor of the bill because I feel that if there are a number of States, as you stated yesterday, that do not have a licensing law, I know from experience that a number of camps are going to try to avoid having certain things. In fact, even in camps that we license, and they know it is a law, we find many situations where, well, not many, but we find situations where the staff are underage, improperly trained. We find unqualified people on the waterfront. We go through this in a State where licensing is already a law and I can just imagine if all of a sudden we didn't have licensing in the

camps.

Mr. DANIELS. In 1965 you finally amended your camp law in the State of Michigan to attain a more effective law, is that correct?

Mr. FEEHERY. I began work with the State of Michigan in 1964 and it was done prior to that. I think it was around 1960, 1961 or 1962 that they were amended.

Mr. DANIELS. Well, the State of Michigan is reported to be a pioneer in this field and had adopted the first camp safety law in this country. At least that is what we were told in these hearings. Now, prior to enactment of this law, can you tell me what the records will show with regard to facilities and the number of camp accidents and illness which occurred annually? Do you possess any statistics on that score?

Mr. FEEHERY. Unfortunately, I don't have any statistics prior to the time I began working with the State of Michigan. However, I have heard, Dr. John Kirk has told me, that the reason for these laws being changed was because of the number of accidents and I understand the year prior to the time there was more teeth put in