December 5, 2013

1. Getting Ready for Camp: Planning and Preparing Your Child for a Camp Experience Presentation by Susanna Miller Community Support Specialist December 5, 2013

2. Why send your child to camp? According to the American Camp Association: • Camp improves the livesof children, youth, and families! • Camp makes children healthy! • Camp enables children to grow to be caring, contributing, successful members of society.

3. Why send your child to camp? • Independence • Choices & Decision-Making • Self Care • Social Skills • Relationships & Friendships • Leadership

4. Behaviors Away from Home • Do you know if you child has challenging behaviors outside of home and school? • Have you sent your child away from home other than school? • Has your child had any overnight experiences outside of the home?

5. Things to Consider • Authority Figure Interactions • Do they respect authority figures? • Do they trust authority figures? • Peer Interactions • How hard is it for them to interact with their peers? • Do they play cooperative games?

6. How to Choose a Camp • ACA or some other accreditation • Opinions of parents and other campers American Camp Association “Find a Camp” http://find.acacamps.org

7. Things to Consider Supervision by Staff • Better than “good staff” • Highly structured • Highly consistent • Highly patient • Staff Ratio • Are they appropriate for issues that might arise • Support Staff • Do counselors have the support they need if situations arise that they aren’t prepared for?

8. Things to Consider Routines • Does the program run in a way that is conducive to a camper finding a routine? • Are activities at the same time everyday? • Do campers choose elective periods while they are at camp? • Are schedules made for campers before or after their arrival? • How structured are mornings and nights?

9. Things to Consider Medications • How many medications is the camper on? • Is the medical staff prepared for a child on medications? • Is the programming conducive to the camper being able to get medications multiple times a day?

10. Tradition vs. Specialized • How much support does your child need? • Does your child need specialized interventions? • Is your child in an inclusive environment in a school setting? • Is your child in an inclusive environmnet in a community setting?

11. Preparing Your Child • Overnight trips to family members’ homes • Overnight trips to friends’ homes • Involvement in community recreation and leisure activities • Involvement in youth programs at local religious establishments

12. Preparing Yourself • Overnight trips • Find parents who are or have been in similar situations • Find something fun for yourself to do while child is away

13. Preparing the Camp • FULLY DISCLOSE information about your child to the camp director • Why do you want your child to come to camp? • Has your child been to camp before? • What was their experience like? • What is your child’s attitude about going to camp? • What is the child’s exact diagnosis?

14. Preparing the Camp • What are strategies that work and do not work with the child? • Is the child physically or verbally aggressive? • If so, what were the situations surrounding these incidents? • Will those situations be present at camp? Is the camp prepared for that? • Connect camp director to teacher, counselor, psychologist, etc.

15. Contact Information Susanna Miller Community Support Specialist smiller65@gsu.edu www.cld-gsu.org