Practical coaching for camp counselors, tangents included.
First Class Counselors deals in the everyday skills of camp work: triaging a homesick kid, respecting a no-peanuts rule, knowing when to call for help. The talk is friendly and loose enough to stop and debate how to say Reese's, but the advice keeps returning to campers' safety and care.
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First Class Counselors is a podcast from Camp Hacker built around advice for the people who spend the summer alongside campers: the counselors. The show lists two hosts, Oliver Gregan and Matt Honsberger, and their conversations have the easy back-and-forth of two people comparing notes. One episode's introduction makes the premise plain. Staff training lasts only a few days, so the podcast casts itself as endurance training for the marathon of a summer. That framing holds across a wide spread of subjects. 'Using Stats To Master Counseling - First Class Counselors #81' borrows a measuring mindset, with the hosts cheerfully admitting they are not researchers. The payoff is a sharp idea: the goal is not a high or low rate of handling problems solo, but handling the situations a counselor should handle alone and asking for help with the rest. A homesick camper is the example, a case where a counselor ought to manage the first triage steps before calling anyone in. The same conversation turns the lens inward, asking what the stats of a counselor's own self-care look like. Safety sits underneath much of the advice, though not in a fearful way. A line from that episode sums up the balance: aim for bruises, not scars, because kids get scraped running full speed through woods they rarely get to run through at home. In 'Eat Like Royalty At Summer Camp - First Class Counselors #62', snack talk lands on rules: peanut bans exist because peanuts are among the most common causes of anaphylaxis, and knowing why a rule exists tells a counselor how careful to be. That episode also detours into how to pronounce Reese's, a sign the show is happy to wander. 'Our Biggest Baddest Blunders - First Class Counselors #57' includes a pointed comparison: people would report a dangling power line without hesitating, yet often hold back when someone's mental health is in trouble. The suggested first step is mental health first aid training, described as affordable and likened to physical first aid, where the job is to steady things until a trained professional arrives. The show is equally candid about how unusual the job can feel. 'Let’s Get Real About Camp Staff Expectations - First Class Counselors #75' takes on the fact that staff live on site and leave only on time off, a setup some people struggle with until it is framed around keeping everyone safe. The trade-offs have upsides too, like one host's real affection for the camp dish pit and his gloom at washing dishes at home afterward. 'Taking Camp Home With You - First Class Counselors #56' carries camp community past the summer, describing a camp checking on staff, families and year-round guests after a hurricane, and staff helping clear out a board chair's flooded home. Episodes include promotional spots, and several close with an appeal to credit ideas when passing them on, in keeping with a field the show calls built on sharing. The result is a practical, good-humoured listen that treats counselor work as skilled work with real stakes for campers.
Made for: Suits a listener who works, or is about to work, as a summer camp counselor and wants concrete guidance on homesick campers, safety rules and self-care beyond a few days of staff training. It also fits a camp leader looking for material to share with front-line staff.
What sets it apart: It stays at counselor level, pairing firm safety guidance such as allergy rules and mental health first aid with frank talk about living on site and knowing when to ask for help. Treating counselor work as something to measure, down to the stats of one's own self-care, is a distinctive angle.
Camp counselors have the most important job at summer camp. Period. A great camp staff will have kids wanting to come back to camp year after year. First Class Counsellors is here to make great camp staff. Each week, we’ll cover practical and accessible tips that will level up your camp counselor skills. Our two hosts, Oliver Gregan, Summer and Families Camp Director at YMCA Camp Jewell and Matt Honsberger from Go Camp Pro are excited to be able to provide this resource to camp counselors.
Oliver and Matt ask whether your best camp stat is knowing when to call for help.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at using camp data without letting numbers flatten judgment, care, or warmth.
Statistics sit inside camp counseling here as something more useful than a scoreboard. They help counselors think about self-care, happiness, and whether a number is measuring the thing that actually matters.
Daily TED and TEDx talks hosted by Elise Hu, spanning science, psychology, and creativity.
Pop culture, personal stakes, and room for a tangent.
This episode discusses the philosophy of discipline versus punishment in working with children at summer camp.
First Class Counselors episode 81 asks how camp counselors can measure their work the way directors already measure budgets, retention, and program costs.
First Class Counselors #75 challenges the assumption that camp work is only recreation by emphasizing safety, chores, and role-modeling.
Oliver Gregan of YMCA Camp Winona and Matt Wilfred of Campfire Circle share strategies for handling six-to-ten weeks of repetitive camp dining-hall meals.
Oliver Gregan and Matt Wilford examine personal mistakes from their early camp careers, including Oliver's late April application and Matt's staff-training misjudgments.
First Class Counselors #56 examines how camp counselors can carry camp's planning, resilience, and conflict-management skills into life after summer.