We are so excited to see you at Alleghany this summer! Our goal is for each camper to have a healthy, active, and enjoyable experience. A qualified health care staff member is on site 24 hours a day to meet your camper’s health and wellness needs (typically two nurses and one doctor at all times). In addition, emergency facilities are readily available at the Greenbrier Valley Medical Center and MedExpress. There are a few things that you can do to help us provide the best care possible for all our campers, and we are asking your cooperation with the following items.
Health Forms
- If you have not yet submitted your camper’s Health History Form (Form A), which is to be filled out by a parent or guardian, and is available online in your CampMinder account, please complete this in its entirety and submit it as soon as possible. (Note: this is filled out by you, the guardian; a doctor visit is NOT necessary to complete this one!)
- Have your health care provider complete the Camper Health Form (Form B) and update the immunization records to provide us the most accurate and up-to-date information.
Please include comments about any and all illnesses, medical problems, restrictions, limitations, or special concerns, allergies, activity, dietary, mental health, etc. The more we know about your camper, the better prepared we are to ensure she has a positive experience. Remember to sign the Parent/Guardian Authorization box and include all pertinent emergency contact information.
Also remember to include your health insurance information. We will keep your camper’s health care information confidential. Only those staff members who need to know of your camper’s health care concerns will be informed.
Please scan and upload your camper’s Health Form, signed by her physician, to your CampMinder account by May 1. If your doctor’s appointment does not occur until after May 1, please click here to let us know the date of your camper’s appointment.
Daily Medication Procedures
In an abundance of safety and precaution, using absolute best practices and steadfastly following the ACA’s standards for medication dispensing, this year we are requiring that regular, daily medications are brought to camp in separate dosing packets/bags for each dose, with the camper’s name, date, time of day the medication is to be taken, and medication name and dose listed on the packet. This means that if she takes medication twice a day for three weeks, you will bring with you 42 packets of medication, fully labeled with all the pertinent information, for her entire stay (21 days) at camp. If she takes more than one medication at the same time, both medications can be in the bag/packet and they must both be listed on the label.
There are multiple ways to achieve this:
- Amazon Prime is offering a free service called Amazon PillPack.
- Many pharmacies offer a similar service, you can inquire at your local pharmacy.
- You can do the work yourself by using mini bags like these, and typing or writing on mailing labels with all the information on them.*
- Alternatively, you can use blister packs such as these that you assemble on your own, making sure to also fully and clearly label these as well.*
*If you choose this route, you must bring the original package/bottle that the medication came in, so that our medical staff can confirm the dosage and other important information.
Note: Liquid medications will still need to come in their original bottles with dosing cup.
If you have questions about this, please contact Elizabeth@campalleghany.com.
Additional Medication Notes
- Medications are kept safely locked in the Infirmary and will be dispensed by our medical staff per your physician’s instructions. Medications are NEVER allowed in the tent or outside the Infirmary, except in very rare instances with explicit instructions from your physician.
- Only ESSENTIAL doctor prescribed and those medications taken daily should be sent to camp. Due to the volume of medications we receive, we are no longer able to accept any other vitamins or non-essential medications.
- Please do not send anything GUMMY (e.g. gummy vitamins, gummy melatonin, etc). The mice LOVE gummies and will smell it and find it and attempt to eat it. Please leave the vitamins at home anyway, and please do not send anything gummy.
- Our Infirmary supplies all routinely needed non-prescription medications, so please only send medications that your camper takes on a daily basis (for example, if your camper takes an allergy medication such as Zyrtec as needed, not every day, do not send this to camp, we have this in stock at the Infirmary!).
- We will not dispense medication labeled for another person (i.e. siblings may not share).
- Do not send any medication to camp with your camper that is not listed on the Camper Health Form. If your child requires any medication during camp (prescription, or daily over-the-counter), it must be brought to the Infirmary on the first day of camp.
- If the camp doctor determines that your child needs more of the same medicine, you will be notified, we will obtain the medication at a local pharmacy, and your child’s account will be billed accordingly.
Mental Health
In an effort to provide the best care for our girls and ensure a positive and productive camp experience for all we are happy to include a Licensed Professional Counselor as a part of our health care team as our Wellness Counselor. She will meet with our counselors during Staff Training and spend some time with them covering self-care and camper care, with a special focus on mental health strategies. During Term Camp, she will live onsite for a portion of the time, and be available to our staff via phone or Zoom for support when she is not in camp.
She is a wonderful resource for both campers and staff, especially those working through homesickness, anxiety, and other emotional issues that might be impacting their camp experience. Although she is a mental health professional, she will not be providing formal therapy. During her time at camp, she will be available to listen to the girls’ concerns, talk with them in a safe and caring environment, and provide tools and strategies to help them work through their feelings so that they can make the most of their camp experience. Think of her as a school counselor for camp!
Emergencies & Doctors Appointments
In the case that your camper needs medical or dental attention at a facility outside the camp setting, we will make such appointments and a staff member will transport and chaperone her to the appointment. You will be notified by an Infirmary staff member if this becomes necessary.
You will also be notified if your camper has been confined to the Infirmary for more than 24 hours due to illness or injury; if she has been prescribed antibiotics; if there is a suspected or confirmed concussion; sutures; tick bites; if your camper has been to the Infirmary 3 times for the same issue; or if the health care provider has other concerns to discuss. Please make sure your preferred contact information and method (phone, email, etc.) are current in your CampMinder account and on your camper’s health forms.
Flu, Fever, & Virus Guidelines
Viruses are still present during the spring and summer, and because we live in close quarters at Alleghany, they could be easily spread to other campers. Camp Alleghany follows the American Camp Association guidelines for flu/virus prevention. It is helpful to us to know if your camper received a flu or COVID vaccine.
If your camper has been (a) exposed to flu/COVID, (b) has a fever upon arrival at camp (temperature of 100.4 F or higher), or (c) has had a fever (100.4 F or higher) within 24 hours of arrival at camp, we require that you:
- Keep her at home until she has been fever free for 24 hours, without the use of an antipyretic (e.g. Tylenol)
- Call camp to let us know you will be delayed in arriving due to illness
- Notify us when you plan to bring her to camp after she has been fever-free for 24 hours, without the use of an antipyretic.
Lastly, on Opening or Closing Day, if you or anyone in your family has been ill or had a fever within 24 hours, we respectfully ask that you not come to camp, for the safety of your camper and all of our campers and staff.
Fever Policy: At Camp Alleghany, a fever is a temperature of 100.4 F or higher. If your camper arrives at camp with a temperature of 100.4 F or higher, we will ask that you take her home or to a hotel until she is fever-free for 24 hours, without the use of an antipyretic (e.g. Tylenol). A low grade fever of 99.5-100.3 F will require a follow-up check at camp, and monitoring for the first 24-48 hours at camp. If a camper develops a fever while at camp, first COVID will be ruled out, and then she will be monitored by the Infirmary staff and will stay in the Infirmary until she is fever-free.
Infirmary Email Address
You can reach the Infirmary staff via email here or at the email address Infirmary@campalleghany.com (this email address is NOT monitored until camp is in session, please do not use it until then). This email address is checked daily by one of the nurses or doctors during the summer, and may be used to contact parents/guardians if a phone call has not been successful. We do ask that you respect the medical team and only contact them using this address if absolutely necessary. The intent of this email is to make communication more smooth and take out the “middle man” (i.e. the camp office, which has so many other emails to reply to daily!), but our hope is that parents will not take advantage of this communication tool. Thanks for your understanding! As always, it is our goal to ensure that all of our campers have the most positive, pleasant, and healthy camping experience possible. Working with us, you can help make this possible. Camp Alleghany’s directors and staff thank you for your partnership, understanding and diligence in this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us. Open communication between you, your child, your physician, and the Camp Alleghany Infirmary staff will ensure a smooth transition into camp and a more healthy time while here.
We look forward to providing excellent care for your camper while she is at Alleghany this summer!
Sincerely,
Camp Alleghany’s Medical Team
Health and Wellness FAQs
While our mission is to guide your girls through various aspects of personal growth and achieving goals while having fun, our responsibility is to keep them safe, cared for, and healthy. The information you provide on the forms helps us meet that responsibility so that we can move forward with meeting our mission.
We are an American Camp Association (ACA) – accredited camp, as as such we follow the ACA’s standards and recommendations for health and safety. The Health Form is carefully and intentionally crafted for the camp experience, including authorization from your physician that your camper is cleared to attend summer camp. We take this seriously for the health and safety of all of our campers. Thank you for working with us on this.
Believe it or not, we’re already deep in planning mode, and everyone from our medical staff to our kitchen staff to our Head Counselors are starting to look at each camper’s individual needs, so that we can be as prepared for your camper as possible.
Did you know that we’ve already planned our menus, and we’re working with our food service company to ensure that we can get the food we need? It is especially important that we know your campers’ dietary needs at this time. The Food Service Manager that we have hired through our food service company, Wolfoods, will be managing the cooking and serving of all Special Diets, and we have an additional support staff person hired as the Special Diets Manager. That is TWO people looking after campers with dietary restrictions. Knowing the number of campers NOW who have specific allergies will help us plan well in advance to ensure we order enough food for each of those individuals. Remember… meeting our responsibility to keep your child safe helps us devote time to achieving our mission of helping her grow. Please fill out Form A – Health History to provide this important health and dietary information.
We still need this information as soon as possible, because WE don’t know that your camper doesn’t have a special dietary need. If we’re still waiting on 100 campers to fill out their forms, we have no idea on our end if 1 of them has a special diet, or 50 of them. So having Form A- Health History filled out as soon as possible gives us that very important number earlier than later, which again helps us to plan our menus and food ordering in a timely fashion. On top of that, we also need this information to know if she has any other individual needs that we can be planning for at this time. Diet/food is important, and all of her other individual needs matter to us as well!
We understand that many of you aren’t able to get a doctor’s appointment until after our paperwork deadline of May 1. This is understandable, and we still request that all other paperwork is turned in by May 1. If you know your appointment will be after May 1, CLICK HERE to fill out this brief form and let us know when the appointment will be.
Once you type in this information electronically within the Health History form, it will save year-to-year, saving you time in future years!