How to Fill Out the Young Life Camping Health and Consent Form

Every camper headed to a Young Life trip of 72 hours or longer must complete the full Young Life camping health and consent form (YL-6007) before departure day, and shorter trips use a different, abbreviated form.¹ The form collects your child’s medical history, emergency contacts, insurance details, and the legal authorizations camp staff need to treat an injury or illness in a remote setting. Fill it out carefully, submit it on time, and your camper gets on the bus. Miss a signature or a required physician sign-off, and they may not.

Pick the Right Form First

Young Life uses two forms, and the trip length decides which one you need:

Trips of 72 hours or more use the Camping Health, Consent and Release Form (YL-6007). This is the standard weeklong summer camp form with full health history, physician sections, insurance, and legal waivers.
Trips under 72 hours use the Short Health and Activity Consent Form (1717), a streamlined version for weekend retreats and day events.

Both are available in English and Spanish.¹ If you’re not sure which applies, ask your local Young Life leader for the exact trip dates and duration. Everything below focuses on the full YL-6007.

How to Get the Form and Start Filling It Out

The preferred version is the online digital form. There’s no public self-service portal, so you need to contact your local Young Life staff person to receive a direct link.¹ Before you open it, have three pieces of information from your trip leader ready: the Young Life area number (formatted like “VA37”), the camp name (such as Rockbridge or Frontier Ranch), and the specific camp dates.

PDF versions are also posted on Young Life’s health forms page if you’d rather work on paper. One rule matters above the others: do not email a completed form to anyone. Young Life explicitly warns against this because the form carries sensitive medical and personal information.¹ If you fill out a paper copy, hand it directly to your local Young Life area office or trip leader.

Returning family? If you completed a health form for a previous trip, log back in with your earlier username and password, copy the old form to the new trip, and update anything that’s changed. It saves a lot of time.

Personal and Contact Information

The top of the form asks for the camper’s full name, birthdate, gender, age, and school.² Below that, it collects detailed contact information for up to two parents or guardians: name, email, cell phone, home address, home phone, work address, and work phone. Fill in every field you can. Camp staff work down the list if they need to reach someone fast, and a stale number or outdated email is a real problem in the middle of an emergency.

A separate emergency contact section asks for someone to reach when neither parent is available. Pick a local person who can actually make decisions and answer questions about your child’s health. You’ll need their name, cell phone, home address, and home phone.

If a court order restricts who may pick up or have contact with the camper, note the authorized or unauthorized individuals in the Protective Custody Arrangements section. Camp staff take these entries seriously.

Health History and Medical Details

This is the longest part of the form and the easiest one to rush. Don’t. Camp medical staff rely on what you write here if your child has an asthma attack at 2 a.m. or reacts to something at dinner.

You’ll be asked to report any chronic or recurring illness or medical condition, including behavioral conditions, along with past operations or serious injuries and dates. The form specifically asks for an explanation of any history of loss of consciousness, convulsions, or concussions.² A health history checklist covers asthma, bleeding or clotting disorders, convulsions in the last 60 days, diabetes, epilepsy, frequent ear infections, heart defects or disease, hypertension, and sickle cell disease.

For any medication that needs to continue at camp, list each one with its dosage. Be specific. “Albuterol inhaler, 2 puffs every 4–6 hours as needed for wheezing” is far more useful than “inhaler as needed.” The form also asks for the name and phone number of your child’s family physician, dentist, and orthodontist.

Allergies and Dietary Restrictions

There are checkboxes for peanut allergy, tree nut allergy, gluten intolerance, and celiac disease, plus a write-in field for other food, drug, plant, and insect reactions.² If your child is on a medically prescribed meal plan, say so. The form doesn’t spell out exactly how dietary information reaches the camp kitchen, so if the allergy is severe, follow up directly with your trip leader to confirm how the camp handles it.

If your child carries an epinephrine auto-injector, the physician section includes a specific authorization for them to carry it. Consider sending a written allergy action plan with the form naming the allergen, the symptoms, and the correct medication and dose. Camp medical staff rely on these during fast-moving emergencies.

Immunization Records

The form includes a grid for vaccination dates covering DTaP, Td, MMR, polio, hepatitis B, varicella, Hib, and any others.² Pull your child’s immunization card or ask the pediatrician’s office to send it. Most can fax or email within a day or two. If a vaccine wasn’t given, the form asks for a reason. Camps in states with specific requirements, such as New York’s Lake Champion, require an official immunization record attached to the form.¹

Insurance Information

You’ll enter your health insurance company name, policy number, and the insurer’s mailing address. Pull these directly from your insurance card. A wrong digit in the policy number can hold up a claim if your child needs emergency care at camp.

One thing worth knowing before you sign: your personal health insurance is the primary coverage for any camp accident. Young Life carries secondary accident coverage with its own caps and coordination rules.²

When a Physician Signature Is Required

Not every camper needs a doctor’s sign-off. The digital form will tell you if yours does. A medical signature on the YL-6007 is required when the camper:

Is attending Beyond Malibu or Castaway Club (adult guests at Castaway Club are exempt).
Is pregnant or gave birth within 12 weeks of the camp date.
Is an infant between 6 and 12 weeks old during the trip.
Is attending certain Colorado or Minnesota camps (Crooked Creek Ranch, Wilderness Ranch, and others) and meets the age or medical criteria those states define.

The signature must come from a physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner. No other provider qualifies, and the signature must be obtained within the same calendar year as the camp trip.¹ The physician section asks the provider to assess whether the camper can handle an active camp program and altitude between 7,000 and 14,000 feet, and to authorize the camper to carry emergency medications like an inhaler or epi-pen.²

Schedule this appointment early. A sports physical at a retail clinic or urgent care runs roughly $40 to $100, and availability tightens in May and June when every camp and sports program is booking at once. If the digital form flags that your camper needs a physician signature, don’t leave it for the week before departure.

Medication Handling at Camp

All medications brought to camp must arrive in their original containers with the pharmacy label attached. Campers turn their medications over to camp staff on arrival, and staff secure them in the infirmary or another controlled area. The one exception: emergency medications like epinephrine auto-injectors and inhalers may be carried by the camper.³

List any daily medication on the health history section with exact dosage and timing. Staff administer it on that schedule from what you’ve provided. Unlabeled pills in a baggie create confusion and may not be given at all. For campers heading to a New York camp (Lake Champion or Saranac Village), you also need to complete a separate Prescription and Over-the-Counter Medication Rider form in addition to the YL-6007.¹

Legal Waivers and Signatures

The bottom portion of the form carries several legal authorizations. Anyone under 18 needs a parent or legal guardian’s signature on each. Without them, the camper cannot attend.

Authorization for Treatment

This section gives camp administrators permission to seek emergency medical, dental, or surgical care if your child is injured or sick and you can’t be reached. It functions as a limited medical consent so staff and local hospitals aren’t waiting on a parent’s phone call before treating a broken arm or a severe reaction.

Risk Acknowledgment and Liability Release

The waiver asks you to acknowledge the inherent risks of camp activities, which can include ropes courses, zip lines, swimming, horseback riding, and competitive sports. You also sign an indemnification clause releasing Young Life from liability for injuries arising from standard camp operations. Camps in Colorado, Arizona, and Virginia include additional equine activity liability disclaimers specific to those states’ laws.²

Photo and Media Release

A separate signature line grants Young Life permission to use photographs or videos of the camper for promotional purposes. If you’d rather not sign this, talk to your trip leader before camp about whether opting out is possible and how the camp handles it on-site.

Submitting the Form on Time

The form must be completed before departure for camp. There is no grace period.¹ If you used the online digital version, submission happens directly through the link your staff person provided. Look for a confirmation in your email once you submit. If you filled out a paper PDF, hand it to your local Young Life leader or area office. Not email.

Camp medical staff review submitted forms and flag issues: missing immunization dates, unsigned consent sections, a required physician signature that didn’t come through. If something’s incomplete, expect your trip leader to follow up asking you to fix it. Handling that a week out is manageable. Handling it at the bus is not. Submit as early as you can once your trip leader sends the link, and before you hit submit, go back through the form and confirm every signature line is signed and every required field is filled.

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Young Life. Health Forms
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Young Life. Camping Health Consent and Release Form
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Young Life. Medication Rider to Health and Consent Form