Training Staff To Work With Special-Needs Campers
As easy as 1, 2, 3
By Brandon Briery
Photos Courtesy Of Camp CAMP
Every spring, camps around the country turn their attention to recruiting, hiring, and training the staff that they hope will provide the best summer experience for campers. Recruiters meet with countless individuals during these trips, interview those who apply and show promise, and then extend offers to those who rise to the top of the applicant pool. Then, after all that, the real fun begins! These individuals--from different backgrounds and locations--will join together to form a team. While the journey to this point can be daunting and critically important, and should all be considered part of the orientation and training process, the next steps can make or break a summer staff.
Training in any type of camp should involve content geared to child/youth development, behavior management, environmental awareness, and other global topics. There should also be content specifically related to the organization’s history and vision, philosophy, culture, and goals. While my outline here could be a “forest-level” overview of training, let’s consider examining the “trees” and camps serving individuals with special needs.
Even if your primary focus is not that of a “special-needs camp,” chances are you have had campers apply from time to time who present one or more challenges. It is amazing that advances in treatment, as well as in acceptance and understanding, are making more camps accessible to more people, regardless of their challenges. These individuals must have opportunities to experience specialized camping programs in which they can find a true peer group—sometimes for the first time in their lives. Whenever accommodations can be made, individuals with special needs should be able to attend both traditional camps and special-needs camps, even during the same summer.
Advice From An Advocate
Having established all that, the following tips may be helpful for staff in either a “special-needs camp” or a more traditional camp.
Tip 1: Treat everyone with dignity and respect. This seems so basic, yet many people do a poor job of it! It means being mindful of the words used when talking to campers or about them. For example, people may comment, even jokingly, “My outfit looks so retarded today.” Campers with intellectual disabilities—who may have been labeled as “retarded” at some point in their lives—may have their feelings hurt from this type of comment. The same rules apply if racial, sexual, or other potentially demeaning slurs are inserted into the mix. Making strained or unpleasant faces or grimacing when helping to assist someone with personal care or mobility can be disturbing to the camper. There is no reason to make the person feel guilty or that he or she is a burden.
Tip 2: Meet the campers where they are. I always recommend approaching new people as if they are “on level,” that is, their developmental age is the same as their chronological age. This also relates to dignity, for I frequently hear individuals with special needs voice feelings that others treat them “like a baby” or as if they are “stupid.” Understand that there are individual differences in how—and how quickly—people process information, how comfortable they are in talking with others, how well they pay attention, and how well their memory works. Being patient and allowing time for campers to respond, asking questions in different ways, repeating statements when necessary, and making it comfortable for questions to be answered in different ways, can all serve to help make everyone feel more at home.
Tip 3: When in doubt, ask the camper or the camper’s caregiver. Most people with special needs prefer to be talked to directly about an uncomfortable topic rather than the other person just making assumptions. Sometimes, due to an individual’s ability to understand or communicate, or due to the sensitive nature of the subject, it may be better to discuss the topic with the camper’s caregiver. Still, always direct questions to the camper, even if the caregiver is the one who provides the answers. It is important to make the camper feel included in the conversation—it is, after all, about him or her!
Although this advice may seem general, it is amazing how successful staff members can be if they follow these three tips with EVERY camper—those who have identified special needs as well as those who do not!
Brandon G. Briery, Ph.D., is the Executive Camping Director for Children’s Association for Maximum Potential (CAMP). Reach him at brandon.briery@campcamp.org .
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Defining Special Needs
Here are some terms you may have heard in conversation about those with special needs. But what do the terms really mean? Let’s take a look:
Special needs —Traditional definitions typically include individuals with cognitive disabilities, developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, medical conditions, physical disabilities, or sensory disabilities. The definition also can be extended to include individuals with psychosocial or emotional challenges, like grieving, having a parent with a special need or one who has been incarcerated, being in the foster-care system, or living in poverty.
Cognitive disabilities —These are also known as intellectual disabilities (the term “mental retardation” once fell into this category, but is no longer considered acceptable terminology). People with cognitive disabilities face some level of intellectual difficulty, but the severity can vary greatly from person to person. Examples may include individuals with autism spectrum disorders or Down syndrome.
Developmental disabilities —These can be cognitive, physical, or both, but must have been present prior to the age of 22 years. Conditions such as autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and spina bifida are all considered developmental disabilities, as well as being in one of the other aforementioned categories (cognitive or physical disabilities).
Learning disabilities —These can be specific to a type of learning, such as verbal, non-verbal, or math, or due to some other neurological or processing challenge, such as found in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Medical conditions —Conditions such as asthma, cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, sickle cell anemia fall into this category. These are, typically, conditions that may be acute or chronic, that require ongoing monitoring by physicians, have complicated treatment/medication regimens, or are life-threatening situations.
Physical disabilities —These conditions affect mobility or other parts of the body in some physical way. Examples include amputations, cerebral palsy, or spina bifida.
Sensory disabilities —These conditions affect a person’s ability to use one of the senses. Blindness and deafness are the two most prominent examples of sensory disabilities, although there are others.
Multiple disabilities —It is also possible for a person to experience more than one type of disability at the same time, or the primary disability may fall into more than one category (for example, someone with cerebral palsy may have both a physical and developmental disability, and possibly, but not always, an intellectual disability as well).