Medications at Camp

We gave the meds, just outside, of the Dining Hall. The children were "supposed to" keep back a foot or so but never did. No one ever hinted that they needed or wanted to keep private about their meds. Many of the children were on ADD meds and some who were not freely talked about "vacation from meds" for the summer.

We do ours in the Health Center, and I wouldn't switch to the dining hall--mostly for privacy, but also 'cause it's harder (I think) to make sure they're actually taken. In the health center only the girls who take meds have any chance of observing what someone else is taking, and they sort of "understand" each other--it'd be different at a table with girls who don't take them. When I overhear one girl asking another what she takes, I issue a gentle "that's private" reminder--but if the girls want to share, I've got no problem with that. I've had many girls who were shy about taking meds, but actually, meeting other girls who did, too, seemed to help them a lot. It was neat.

At a camp where I worked in the past, there was a table set up outside the main dining hall in the foyerway for campers to get meds from the nurse prior to meals. The only time it was acceptable to bring meds into the dining hall itself, was in an emergency. The dining hall was centrally located , but the health lodge was not. HIPPA, none of the kids seemed to have a problem with this arrangement and the parents were told how medication administration occured, and none had complains either.