Summer Camp Programs for Special Campers
Therapeutic Recreation and Life Skills Programs:
Please review each of the 3 Programs we offer for the best fit for your child;
Participation , Recreation or Independence. The goal of each of these programs is to maximize a child’s ability to successfully engage in and benefit from our broad range of daily activities to improve social and life skills.
We motivate camper participation to help advance interest in meaningful life interests and skills that can be consistently practiced and applied at home and community settings. And all while enjoying the incredibly fun days of camp!
Summer camp provides valuable experiences for every camper.
Our individualized and structured activities allow campers to feel secure and develop a new comfort zone for recreation and learning. This security, combined with playfulness and loving care, allows campers to easily engage in learning new skills and become more self-motivated. Activities are designed and delivered in a precise and consistent manner by staff that are trained by special education professionals. Campers are encouraged to participate using positive reinforcement and praise.
The camp setting is ideal for learning and generalizing social and
life skills. Campers live in groups that vary in size from three to eight campers. Our low counselor-to-camper ratio of 1:1, 1:2 or 1:3+ allows staff members to ensure that all campers are safely guided and participate in each daily activity to the maximum possible extent, and on an individualized basis to make skills learning relevant per child and usable for generalization after camp. Music, drama, arts & crafts and swimming are always among the favorites.
One of the main purposes of summer camp is to have fun!, participating in safely designed activities, which we’ve designed to be appropriate for a wide-range of ability levels and ages 6-22 years in our children’s program, or in one of our adult groups: 23 years and older. The learning and organizational strategies being taught at home and in school are reinforced in our playful and relaxed environment. Each camper participates in a wide range of activities that are designed to enhance social and life skills, and be both fun and challenging. Counselors ensure that every camper experiences success in each activity. This enables us to improve self-esteem and enhance individual abilities.
Promoting independence during the summer is a strong overall component of our program. Camp helps teach and maintain independence in activities of daily living, and provides the freedom for campers to participate on their own, and for them to develop a sense of themselves as capable individuals. While our program is designed to be recreational, it also contains meaningful and beneficial therapeutic and educational components that are professionally designed by advanced level educators and therapists. At camp, we have fun, while also preparing for future success in community settings. Campers work on learning flexibility and cooperation strategies.
All of our professionally-designed activities encompass the benefits of all three programs (Independence, Recreation, and Participation), while individualizing appropriate skills content and learning methods within each program area.
We can design individual activities to promote specific learning goals from a child’s IEP or parent request in areas, such as: educational or functional skills, friendship-making + cooperation, functional task completion, sequencing skills, technical data-driven learning, and behavioral therapies. We typically advise signing a child up for 1 or more weekly life skills tutoring sessions (50-minutes each), led by a trained life skills counselor, to enhance their camp experience.
All of our professionally-designed activities encompass the benefits of all three programs (Independence, Recreation and Participation).
We can also adapt our program design to emphasize specific aspects to produce benefits in key areas, such as, friendship-making, cooperation, or functional task completion.