A More Diverse, Equitable, Inclusive #TSCamp2023
For as long as I have been attending the Tri-State CAMP Conference (this will be my 9th!) I have admired the efforts of the ACA, NY & NJ team in making the conference not only a resounding success but also in their focus to make the conference more diverse, equitable, and inclusive year after year. While many organizations have a long way to go when it comes to DEI efforts, I’m proud that ACA, NY & NJ is making it a priority.
2020 was a year of reckoning for many reasons, including racial justice. The events of the spring and summer led ACA, NY & NJ, like many other prominent organizations, to create a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee of volunteers for the broader ACA community. Since January 2021, the DEI Committee has worked tirelessly to take the next steps in making our industry more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
While this work is ongoing and will be for as long as necessary, I personally found a gap between the DEI Committee and the Tri-State Program Committee. As a member of both committees, I felt that there needed to be a unifying thread so that one could inform the other. And that’s when I appointed myself as the DEI Liaison for the Tri-State Program Committee.
I wouldn’t call myself a professional or an expert in the DEI space - I’m more of an advocate. So, I recruited my fellow joint-committee member and friend, Briana Mitchell of Change Summer to collaborate. With Briana’s extensive knowledge and experience along with my prior experience on the Program Committee, we joined forces to create a training for our fellow Program Committee members who work hard to select and vet every single speaker and session that you see presented at Tri-State. In October 2022, more than 30 Committee members gathered to kickstart our planning for the conference.
At this meeting, Briana and I led a training for the rest of the Program Committee in an effort to enforce the intention of making Tri-State a more diverse, equitable and inclusive conference. Two of our main points of focus were language (both written and spoken) and accessibility (of the content being shared at the conference). With this guidance, the Program Committee spoke with all possible Tri-State speakers, not only about the content of their sessions, but on how they would make their sessions accessible.
We can proudly share that our joint efforts with ACA, NY & NJ will be very noticeable at Tri-State 2023:
All speakers will be using microphones during their sessions.
Videos will be captioned.
Text shared on presentations will be bold and in high contrast for better visibility.
Accessibility accommodations have been confirmed much further ahead of the conference than in the past.
The “chill room” in partnership with the DEI Committee, will be available throughout the conference as a decompression and break space.
Gender neutral bathrooms will be available in high-traffic areas of the convention center among many other intentional changes and shifts.
Tri-State is the largest gathering of camp professionals in the world. We gather, learn and share our ideas and experiences for the betterment of our own camps, organizations, and programs. Our hope is that our intentional efforts will make Tri-State even more diverse, equitable, and inclusive now and for years to come. In turn, we hope that like any other lesson you learn at a session, these efforts will inspire intentional shifts at your own camp.
Marisa Gershwin serves on the ACA, NY & NJ DEIB Committee and is the DEI Liaison for the Tri-State Program Committee.