Increasingly, Camps Focus on Special Needs
by Gerry McClenahan
Click here for a listing of camps serving kids with special needs.
Whether they target language skills for 5-year-olds or offer a theater program that only kids who stutter and their families may join, summer camps for children with special needs are becoming more specialized.
Increasingly, their programs serve specific mental, physical and emotional needs as well as recreational ones.
“In general, parents want more for their children, and are looking to prepare them earlier and better,” says Risa Paskoff, director of Aaron’s Acres, a non-profit group that operates summer camps in three Pennsylvania locations for kids ages 5 and up with developmental disabilities.
“People look to us because we are very specialized, in that we focus on socialization and communication skills. Those are things that they may be getting at school but they don’t want them to stop when the school year ends,” she says.
However, Paskoff says parents also want their children to have a camp experience with a full slate of activities.
A tall order? Paskoff says it actually works better that way. “If we have them in a setting where they are having fun, doing crafts and horseback riding with others, then the campers are working on their skills without any stress,” she says. “It’s kind of a back-door approach, which they love, not at all like a school setting.”
Older Students Too
Building social and communication skills early prepares kids for school and life. But camps are addressing older kids’ special needs too. In separate sessions, Aaron’s Acres serves students up to age 21.
Some camps cater especially to high-school students, and they, too, are becoming more specialized. One such camp is Explore Your Future (EYF Camp), offered by the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. There, deaf and hearing-impaired high school sophomores and juniors experience life on a college campus, explore their interests and sample various careers.
A six-day summer program provides students with hands-on activities related to careers in engineering, art, business, computers, science and other fields, with an eye on career exploration and college preparedness.
“I think that camp helped me a lot to be prepared for college and to feel comfortable, to fit in with friends,” says James McKenzie, a current Rochester Institute student who attended EYF as a Drexel Hill, PA high school student in 2005.
Making It Fun
Most special needs camps offer their programs in an entertaining and engaging way. They seek to ensure that summer camp is still fun for kids, especially younger ones.
“I don’t think you can do anything successfully with young people unless you make it fun,” says Taro Alexander, founder and artistic director of Our Time Theater Company of Rock Hill, NY. This year, the Company will launch Camp Our Time, a one-week August overnight camp exclusively for kids who stutter and their families.
Alexander says the camp will be the only one of its kind in the country. It will provide activities in theater, music and other artistic pursuits. “They will be offered the camp experience and the chance to perform in an environment free from ridicule, enhanced by better understanding from their families,” Alexander says. “It’s a magical experience.”
Striking a Balance
Andrew Hauman, coordinator for the PA Lions’ Beacon Lodge Camp in Mount Union, PA, says camps that cater to children with special needs have to balance programming between the desires of the kids, who just want to have a good time, and the parents, who are looking for top-notch staff and individual attention for their children.
“Tradition is a very important part of the summer camp experience, yet at the same time, the children look for new and exciting things to keep them interested,” he says. “Parents are very interested in the level of professional training the staff gets, how well the programs fit their children’s needs and the amount and type of interaction with their own son or daughter in
particular.”
Hauman says Camp Beacon Lodge has expanded its children’s camp to accommodate more kids. He says the camp has also responded to demand from parents to reinstate a special care camp for severely physically challenged children.
“We had actually planned to take that session off the calendar this year but we got so many calls that we put it back in,” he says. “There is a lot of demand for that kind of specialty, especially in care.”
Some Don’t Specialize
Not all special needs programs are specialized, however, and many still focus on inclusion. To Philip DeRea, director of Camp Nejeda Foundation, the point is to support campers’ needs while they just have a good time.
While Camp Nejeda, a residential camp in Stillwater, NJ, has a specific clientele — children with type 1 diabetes and their families — it focuses on kids having fun with their peers.
“We are a ‘specialty camp’ mostly in our ability to meet our campers’ specific medical needs, and less in the uniqueness of our programs, which reflect the fun summer camp activities of any good summer camp,” DeRea says.
“The mission of Camp Nejeda is to enhance the lives of children and teens with diabetes and their families by providing a fun and educational camping experience in a safe environment,” he says. “Notice that fun is listed first?”
With a growing number of options, campers with special needs have more choices than ever for a summer of learning — while they have a great time.
Gerry McClenahan is a freelance writer.