New Wellness Program

This summer, Chi took a huge step forward in Mental Wellness support at camp. Led by our new Director of Mental Wellness, Dr. Laura Wood, we introduced a new Wellness initiative at camp that focused around providing consistent and accessible support for our entire camp community. We welcomed six incredible graduate level students from Leslie University, who served as Wellness Advocates for our full session villages. Our advocates both worked to support our campers and helped our cabin counselors learn skills to be better equipped to handle any type of camp situation.

Campers also participated in cabin times led by our advocates that worked on team building and cabin dynamics. Through fun activities campers were given the opportunity to grow as a cabin and learn how better to cooperate with their cabinmates. Campers were also given the chance to let us know how they felt about the cabin times, and we were able to improve them as the summer went on.

It was a great first year exploring a new program and we look forward to continuing our efforts to make every camper who walks through our gates supported and valued. We are always making tweaks and changes to improve the program. One major way that we are looking to add to the program is by adding an advocate for our Mini Session villages, as well as an advocate for our inclusion program this summer!

This program has received rave reviews, and one other camp is planning to replicate the program this summer. Many other camps have questions and are interested in exploring this concept that we created, so Ely and Kyle will be joining Dr. Laura Wood and Dr. Jason Frydman to help other camps replicate this model and learn from our experiences this summer by presenting at the Leaders Assembly Camp Conference this winter. We can’t wait to see how this program continues to grow.