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Great New Books on Organizing:

Go to camp in Australia and much of Canada and you will be there with children with and without disabilities. Inclusion of people with special needs is considered to be the norm in these countries.

Unfortunately, camping tends to be a much more segregated affair in the United States. Only seven percent of the 2,461 camps accredited by the American Camp Association categorize themselves as being inclusive or mainstreaming. Some of these camps are only partially inclusive, housing their campers with special needs in separate areas and only including them in all camp activities such as meals, swims or evening activities.

Camping for All was founded to help remedy this issue in Central Virginia by providing a referral service for parents and caregivers who are looking for camps and by providing support and training to camps that are interested in increasing their inclusion of campers with special needs.

This spring, Camping for All held a day-long conference for camps and recreation programs. Expanding your Rainbow brought out participants from 4H, The Enrichment Alliance of Virginia, CLASS (Charlottesville City Schools’ afterschool program) Camp ExL and Westview on the James. They took part in workshops designed to help them welcome children with HIV, ADHD, vision impairments, and high functioning autism and Asperger’s Syndrome to their programs. There was also a segment on use of People First Language. Speakers came from Camp Holiday Trails, the Piedmont Regional Educational Program and the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired.

Kim Williams, a 4H agent from Louisa County, came to the conference to get suggestions for a couple of children with Asperger’s Syndrome who were going to attend camp this summer. Kim reported after summer was over that, between the information she got at the conference and the information she received from Camping For All later that spring, “we ALL had an AWESOME camp.” She said, “It was like I was where I was supposed to be to get the knowledge and have people like you to guide and assist us!”

Though the participants came to the conference with varying levels of skill and interests, most of them reported that they were now either much better prepared or totally ready to serve the populations that were discussed.

Perhaps, with the help of enthusiastic people like Williams and training programs like Camping for All, more individuals with special needs will find their way into the mainstream and someday inclusion will become the norm in the United States.

Camping for All is currently making plans for spring trainings and summer inclusion programming. If you’d like to help out, or for more information about our training and camp referral programs, please contact Deb Shapiro at camping4all@earthlink.net or (434) 806-8835.