“REGULATION OF SUMMER CAMPS” BILL FILED TO REQUIRE BACKGROUND CHECKS OF FLORIDA CAMP COUNSELORS

State Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, has introduced a bill in the legislature that will require all summer camps to be licensed by the state and which will mandate criminal background checks for camp counselors.

Pafford said he decided to introduce the bill after he read a series of stories last year in The Palm Beach Post detailing how sexual predators find employment in summer camps or start their own camp programs.

The predators were able to do that because there are no statewide mechanisms to ensure that thorough criminal background checks are performed, as there are for day care centers and other child care centers in Florida. In some cases, predators who had been arrested in one part of the state, or in another state, went undetected because background checks were only conducted locally.

The Post series detailed how those lax standards had led to some children who attended camps being sexually molested.

Pafford’s House Bill 591, “Regulation of Summer Camps,” makes the Florida Department of Children and Families responsible for licensing the camps and performing inspections to ensure that thorough background checks are done.

“The welfare and safety of our children should be the top priority of the legislature,” Pafford said. “Current law says that summer camps must perform background checks, but there is no state agency charged with ensuring this happens. Closing this loophole is such an easy way to help protect our kids from sexual predators.”