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Community Corner

A Camp of Their Own

InterCare's Adventure Camp gives local kids with special challenges a chance to have a fun camp experience.

InterCare’s Adventure Camp is a six-week long daytime summer camp for children, ages 6 to 12, with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges.

Gail Killmeyer, who runs the Adventure Camp, got the idea for it when she was working at Southwood Psychiatric Hospital. She explains, “I started the camp because as I was at Southwood, kids told me they hated camp…I thought well, camp’s supposed to be fun, that’s the whole idea behind camp…And then I heard from parents that said there were no camps specifically for kids that had social, emotional and behavioral kinds of challenges.”

As a child, Killmeyer loved attending camp. Dr. Alan Axelson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who owned Southwood at the time, approved Killmeyer’s idea for a camp for children with special challenges. Since its start in 1987, the camp has expanded from a two-week to a six-week long program and is now associated with InterCare.

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Killmeyer explained what a typical day of camp might be like. In the morning, campers are reminded of and encouraged to think of applying the following camp rules: “Be safe, be kind, have fun.” The lunch menu and activities are also announced. In the “pavilion,” where they meet, she says that there is a fire pit, where they cook hamburgers and other food.   

Instead of games that require a lot of strategy and other things that might frustrate campers, Killmeyer says that “cooperative games,” such as “Alaskan kickball,” are played. In Alaskan kickball, players score runs by running around their teammates before the other team yells “stop.” Unlike traditional kickball, Killmeyer says, there are “no outs,” so “everybody is able to score at least one run for their team.”

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Killmeyer says campers participate in the ropes course “challenges,” also used by the Challenge By Choice program, which she also coordinates.

Other activities include “water time,” “scavenger hikes,” and “arts and crafts.” Campers love water time, which involves playing with slip n’ slides and squirt guns.

At the end of the day, Killmeyer says, campers write down in “journals” what they did that day. Besides copying down a description of the day’s activities, they are asked to write down their favorite activity, and campers with whom they played.

Campers are encouraged to do their journals in exchange for treats such as freshly made s’mores. They give the journals to their parents, to keep them apprised of what they are doing at camp.

In addition, campers are asked to give examples of how they followed the rules. If the group did well, everyone can choose a prize from a box. Every Friday, Killmeyer says there is an “award ceremony” for categories like “Super Role Model,” “Best Listener,” and “Most Cooperative.”

Some campers participate as part of Upper St. Clair School District’s Extended School Year (ESY) program. ESY is a program funded by school districts, in order to prevent students from regressing behaviorally, or in other ways, over the course of the summer.

Killmeyer says of all of the campers, “These are kids that deserve to have a good camp experience, and often… they have some behaviors or some challenges that make it difficult in a traditional kind of setting.” She says these kids may have had bad experiences at camp where there were 100 campers, or they may be “vulnerable,” and require more attention from counselors.

Thus, an important part of running the camp is the small camper to counselor ratio. Since there are only 15 campers a week, Killmeyer says that counselors are able to prevent situations, where campers may become upset, from escalating. Many of these counselors are experienced since they are former campers, themselves, or psychology graduate students. In fact, Killmeyer employs one counselor, whom she met when he was an 8-year-old camper.

The Adventure Camp, Killmeyer says, provides a “safer, more supportive atmosphere” than traditional camps. She explains that before games, “we spend more time talking about the concept of respect and the concept of what can we do to get along with each other.” She says that counselors are encouraged to think of ways to help the campers “get along with people” rather than getting frustrated with their behavior.

Killmeyer says that at the Adventure Camp, “We really emphasize and facilitate the concept of pro-social skills, all those things that make us healthier, happier, and hopefully a better planet, as well.”     

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