In Search of a Great Summer Program: One Parent's Solution

by Grace Peng

Summer is over. Back-to-school worries have replaced camp worries. But all too soon, January will arrive, and with it the angst over summer programming. Every year it’s the same frantic search for a program to help my son have an enjoyable summer and still learn the social communications skills he needs. Forget “preventing regression,” which is all that the school is legally responsible for. I want progression! Summer presents the perfect block of time to immerse him in learning and practicing social skills in a less stressful environment—but there is a dearth of appropriate programs available.

I’ve tried a few traditional camps for typical children. However, even with an aide, he was overwhelmed by the pace of the camp and the changes that frequently occurred. Rather than learning from social situations, my son was just trying to survive them. One year I tried a camp for children on the spectrum. It was very expensive, required a four hour drive every day, and, as it turned out, he was too high functioning for the group he had been placed in. Another year I tried to get him into Camp Youthcare, a highly recommended camp for children with Aspergers. He was one of a hundred applicants for six spots. I felt stymied.

This year I finally worked out a solution: I started a camp for children on the spectrum at our school. My husband and I had intended to donate $10,000 to charity this year—and my husband’s company matches employee contributions. So with $20,000 seed money, I approached Camp Youthcare’s director, Dr. Scott McLeod, about consulting with my school system to start up a similar camp. He was very interested.

I then approached the school. Superintendent Mickey Brandmeyer welcomed the opportunity of creating a more appropriate summer program in Lincoln. The school already had a handful of students on the spectrum (and more would be entering in the fall). In summer of 2002, these students had attended a camp run by the town’s recreation department—with mixed results.

Planning for summer 2003 began in October 2002, and involved the school, Youthcare, and the town’s recreation department. The program that evolved from this collaboration had effects that reached far beyond the summer: children are still benefiting from the program and so is the school.

The reason is the staff. In a wise move, the school administration recruited the camp’s staff from within its own special education department. This meant that all the training and experience the camp staff received would remain at the school in the fall. Before camp started and while it was in session, the staff were required to take a 36 hour training program on working with children who have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Youthcare’s Lori Hodgins conducted the training; AANE’s board president Stephen Shore was a guest speaker in one session. The staff received 3 graduate level credits for this course. My son’s new aide for fourth grade got both the training and the opportunity to work with him in the less stressful camp environment, which should make the transition into fourth grade easier for both of them.

The program ran seven weeks. The program was only four days a week, so that the staff had three-day weekends. One day each week, camp ended two hours early to allow time for planning and consultation. I worried at first on whether there would be enough time at three and a half days per week for the children to learn skills. In retrospect, I think the advantages of having staff that were happy and not burnt out far outweighed the disadvantages of a shorter program.

The site of the school camp was adjacent to the site of the town recreation department’s camp. Due in large part to the cooperative spirit of the recreation department’s director, the school camp was able to join the town camp for swimming twice a day, and for some field trips which allowed the children time to be with their grade level peers. One older child in fact, sometimes joined the town camp for activities when the school camp ended. Another child, who is a recent immigrant, had a hard time at the town camp and, at the request of the recreation department, spent a much more enjoyable two weeks at the my son’s camp.

There were eleven children in the program. More had been offered a spot but some parents declined. Some were uncomfortable about the specialized nature of the camp and wanted an integrated environment for their children. Others were afraid of the stigma attached to attended a special needs camp. With such small numbers, the children were divided into two groups: a first through second grade group and a third through fifth grade group. Each group had a full time SPED-certified lead teacher. The older group of five children also had two aides, and the younger group of six children had three aides. The chief architect and program director of the camp was a speech therapist from the school, who had past experience working with nearly all the participating children. In addition there were SPED-certified teachers who taught language and social skills to both groups. There was also an academic tutor.

The enthusiastic camp staff developed the curriculum, drawing on the intensive training they received, observations of Youthcare’s groups, the individual needs and interests of the participating children, and their own creativity. In addition to the twice daily swimming, once a week field trip, and afternoon academics, the children participated in drama, arts and crafts, group games, social skills groups, language groups, and science. Due to the small numbers, schedules could be somewhat customized to the particular child. For example my son, who has less language and more social needs than some of the other students, received social skills twice a week and language once.

The activities were geared towards addressing group and individual goals. Group goals were reviewed and posted during each activity. Students were reminded (both verbally and in writing) about the behaviors necessary to meet the goals. I thought several of the activities were very clever ways of reinforcing social understanding. For example, each child was asked to construct a paper thermometer which measured not temperature but topics that they found interesting so that at the top of the thermometer were their special interests and at the bottom the topics they did not want to talk about. Then the “interest-o-meters” were placed around the room as concrete reminders that everyone has different interests. Teachers referred to these interest-o-meters frequently. They asked the children were asked to find topics they could talk to each other about, based on their interest-o-meters. Another interesting art project was a “compliment paper chain.” Each child received a paper chain created by the other children in the group; a compliment was written on each link.

The staff was great, and willing to be flexible. One of the teachers asked my son whether he skateboarded, since he was wearing a skateboarding tee shirt. He didn’t, but he wanted to learn. The teacher offered to teach my son. He didn’t quite master skateboarding, but the lessons lead to all the kids bringing in their scooter boards and he had an opportunity to scooter around with the other children—something he doesn’t get to do at home.

The school even attempted to support parents with their difficulties in raising a child with special challenges. Three parent discussion groups lead by Dr. McLeod were offered during the summer. Unfortunately, the majority of the parents did not take advantage of these opportunities.

The program was a win-win situation for everyone. The school administration got a program that parents were happy with, and a great training venue for their staff. The teachers got a chance for professional development. The parents got an appropriate program for their children without driving miles to reach. Most importantly, the children got a place where they can learn and enjoy being children.

Not everyone has the resources to enable them to donate $10,000, nor are matching funds available for everyone. But if ten parents from the same or neighboring schools got together and contributed $2000 each, which is less than the cost of a private specialized camp (most cost upwards of $3500), you would have matched the money I contributed. The cost of the program Lincoln provided was much more than the $20,000 I gave. In fact, my donation was used primarily to pay for the Youthcare training program. But offering to donate a substantial amount of money is a very effective way to begin talking to your school system. School administrations are so bombarded with demands that I think most would welcome a serious offer from parents to be a substantial partners with them in developing the right program. If anyone has any questions or would like to discuss what I did, please feel free to contact me at 781-259-3708.

For next summer, I am hoping we can expand the camp in Lincoln to serve twenty children. One drawback of this past summer was that there were so few children that not everyone had good peer matches. Although we have yet to discuss budget and staffing, I feel confident. The administration just made a presentation of this year’s program to the School Committee. One school committee member called it a “gem of a program.” With any luck, I’ll never have summer camp angst again!

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