By now, I'm sure you've seen the CDC's new COVID guidance for camps (link below). The guidance came out on May 27th, which is certainly a challenging time for us to be considering and implementing new summer plans. To be fair to the CDC, the state of COVID has been rapidly changing, so the CDC may have been trying to strike a balance between issuing advice that's simultaneously timely (from a COVID standpoint) and actionable (from the camp industry's standpoint).
In any event, many of us had solidified our COVID plans many months ago -- both so that we would have one less thing to think about during the busy season, and so that we could prepare our families and staff well in advance of summer to comply with our policies. However, as COVID has surely taught us, the best laid plans often don't go as expected.
So here we are: The campers arrive in a few weeks, we've likely sent multiple emails to our families and staff about our COVID plans, and now the CDC has come out with new guidance. If your camp is like most, then the CDC guidance led to at least a few changes to your approach to COVID this summer. This likely means that some of the information that you've already conveyed to staff and families has changed.
When we send messages to our staff and families about camp's COVID policies, we're in many ways committing camp to follow those policies. For example, if you email your families saying, "Camp will do XYZ this summer," then you've essentially made a promise that camp will in fact do XYZ. If you don't follow through on that promise, then a family with a grievance against camp can argue that camp was negligent (or worse) for not following its own policies, or alternatively, that camp breached its contract with families by not delivering on a promise.
Of course, policies and plans can change. It's actually a good practice to write a disclaimer on all your policies saying that they're subject to change without notice. Regardless, you can almost always issue updated policies to replace older ones.
When it comes to your COVID policies, now may be a good time to do just that. Camps may consider sending an email to their families explaining the camp's most up-to-date COVID plans -- especially if the CDC guidance led to any changes. That will serve to reset expectations and update promises. It's a small step that might get lost in the shuffle of camp opening, but it can be a useful part of the larger risk mitigation puzzle.