Paddling , swimming, rock climbing and building confidence
For youth with disabilities or who are neurodiverse, summer camp is about having fun and a lot more
Like any 10-year-old, Leah Bastedo was a little anxious when she went away to camp for the first-time last summer — but she stuck through it.
“We were worried that we would get a call that, ‘No, this is not going to work,’” said Leah’s mother, Robin Wright. “We got an update a couple days into it saying she was homesick, but they talked her through it. It was reassuring getting that kind of call as a parent, that she stuck it out.”
She spent her week at Camp Awakening doing some of her favourite activities, “like swimming, kayaking and canoeing,” Leah said.
Wright’s worry that sleepaway camp wouldn’t work wasn’t only because this was her daughter’s first experience away from their Ottawa home but also because Leah has hereditary spastic paraplegia, a condition that affects her ability to walk so she needs to rely on a wheelchair.
“Not all sleepaway camps out there are built with accessibility in mind, like the cabins and the washrooms and dining halls. But this place has covered all those bases and it has given us peace of mind. It is a non-issue there in terms of having a disability and going to summer camp,” said Wright.
Started 41 years ago, Camp Awakening is a registered charity that partners with three different camps across Ontario to offer a sleepover camp experience for kids between ages eight and 18 with physical disabilities. At each, a cabin has been adapted to ensure it is accessible for the campers.
“It is what the world is now, we are becoming more inclusive,” said Tracy Morley, executing director of Camp Awakening. “Our founders were very progressive in saying there are specialized programs for kids with disabilities, and there are these mainstream camps for other children, and we should really all be together and doing camp together.
“When I first started with Camp Awakening 14 years ago, I used to get phone calls from all over the world asking where we purchased our adapted canoes — but they are just canoes,” she said. “We just modify them to make them more accessible. We work with our campers; they know themselves best, they know how they adapt activities to do at home.”
Morley said the result is that the children and youth leave camp feeling more confident and independent. “I think everyone should go to camp.”
But for parents of children with disabilities or who are neurodiverse, finding summer activities, day camps and other programs is not always easy.
Erica Park-Coutts is the executive director of Camp Kirk, which offers neurodiverse youth between the ages of six and 16 the chance to spend eight- or 11-days swimming, rock climbing and increasing their confidence. She said there are not a lot of options when it comes to summer programs and camps.
“It is tough,” she said. “When families find a good program they hold onto them, and try to spread the word, whether that is a martial arts program, an afterschool program, or a really good public school.”
She said there are a handful of summer camps in the province that offer programs for neurodiverse children, among them are Camp Winston, Camp Kennebec and Camp Dreamwood. And while Camp Kirk can’t support all neurodiverse youth, she said it has strong built strong connections with those other camps.
“If we can’t serve a family, we try not to shut the door on them, because they have had a lot of shut doors. We pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, Camp Winston, do you have the support for this camper?’” Park-Coutts said.
Located in Kirkfield, about a two-hour drive northeast of Toronto, Camp Kirk has been operating since 1993. It accepts 30 campers per session and has a staff of 30 supporting the youth. She said the camp is kept small — both in numbers and in physical size — by design. You can stand on the front porch of one of the buildings and see the pool, dining hall and other facilities.
“That is a pretty important thing for our population of kids, no one gets lost in the mix. And, I think physically, that adds to the sense of belonging and community,” said Park-Coutts.
“When they come to Camp Kirk, we want to give them the opportunity to get all the benefits of being part of a group and social community and give them that space where they can mess up, make mistakes and give them the courage to try again. That leads to confidence.”
Woodstock’s Melody Swartz has been attending Camp Kirk since 2018 when she was 10 years old.
“There is not one thing at the camp (I like more) than anything else — everything is my favourite. Except for the rock climbing, that is scary,” said the now 15-year-old who has been diagnosed on the autism spectrum and has Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
“I know some people from camp and we talk yearround,” she said. “People that I met in 2018, I am still friends with today, which is kind of crazy because I was put into a cabin with five other people I know nothing about.”
Melody’s mother, Stacey Swartz, said the camp experience has changed her daughter’s life.
“She did not really fit into the regular programing that you find at the local community centre, because she just needed a little bit more than the average, so to find a place like camp Kirk was incredible,” said Swartz. “For the first time in her life, she felt like she wasn’t the kid who just stood out or was different. She was able to be herself when she was there. It was like she lit up with excitement because she found her people, found her tribe.
“For so long she has been the kid that wasn’t invited to the birthday parties and didn’t have the same opportunities to have fun at summer camp. For me to be able to give Melody an experience similar to what other kids have, and for her to be able to find a place where she could just be herself, as a mom that is the one thing you want for your kids,” said Swartz.
It is a sentiment echoed by Wright, whose daughter Leah is returning to Camp Awakening this summer.
“(It) sounds simple, but the biggest thing for us was that Camp Awakening gave Leah the chance to experience the ‘traditional’ childhood sleepaway camp experience, just like any other kid,” she said.