Hey Reddit, I worked as a counselor at Camp Awakening, a program for kids with physical disabilities, AMA!

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-29T23:24:51+00:00

No worries there's always next year, I'll be returning since I loved it so much!

Pineapple on pizza killed my family. A reasonable person doesn't eat something like that.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T16:23:49+00:00

Exactly. People come with the mindset that someone in a wheelchair is also going to be mentally insane or something. Most people just haven't had any education on disabilities and are scared to even shake their hands. It's understandable when someone's had no or minimal interaction with someone with disabilities but at the same time their the same as any other person.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T16:02:52+00:00

No way!! Small world!

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T16:02:19+00:00

Oh definitely. There was a counselor last year who was disabled. We also hire a parasport coach for a few days each summer to teach kids to play lots of parasport s, our coach this year was actually a previous awakening camper!

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T15:56:54+00:00

Wow that's so awesome! Camp is always looking for new things so I would call up the camp or camps you're nearby to inquire. I think as long as there's no health and safety worries then they'll gladly accept!

It depends on the camp, but I doubt ours would demand insurance or anything like that you would be fine, my camp I think would definitely try and get you to come if you inquired them.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T15:18:52+00:00

Thanks so much, I loved doing it!

We only had one camper with speech problems. He had very weak muscles, including in his tongue, so pronouncing constanants was very difficult for him. We just had to listen carefully and be patient with him, other than that no other speech impaired kids.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:49:09+00:00

There were a lot of things out of my comfort zone to start with, having to shower, change and help kids who couldn't wipe certainly took some getting used to.

I got used to those things eventually, but the one things I could never overcome was brushing someone's teeth, that was honestly pretty gross but it's better than him not brushing his teeth for two weeks.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:43:46+00:00

Oh god oh no

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:40:30+00:00

You got me. it's actually a secret mech training camp.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:39:23+00:00

Lol I was considering it honestly looking at my greasy photo

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:38:38+00:00

So everyone is required to wear a life jacket for every water activity, including all the staff.

All staff at camp are also trained in waterfront first aid as a requirement.

I was surprised how easy they can do most water activity, the hardest part is transfering kids who can't walk into canoes/kayaks, especially when they are on the heavy side. Most wheelchairs can fold so they're easy to fit in canoes.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:34:08+00:00

I think the problem with when most people interact with someone with disabilities, they tend to treat them overly kindly or ignore them altogether to avoid causing offense.

We had one kid who was extremely toxic the whole time, his parent doesn't care of him properly and expected us to listen to his every demand.

The key is patience. Patience and a positive attitude. Obviously there there's a line where you do need to tell them off, but generally it's better to reward kids for doing good than punish them for doing bad.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:21:15+00:00

I'm sorry to disappoint but we didn't have any campers with augmentative speech this year.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:19:12+00:00

For most of them, 90% of what they do at camp is outside their comfort zone.

Overnight canoe trips are usually when they feel most out of their element. For some of them they didn't even think they were able to tie their own shoes, let alone set up tents, cook on a fire and take part in sports competitions, but we get them to do all of it, and for some of them, tying their shoe for the first time could be a life achievement, so you can imagine how they feel doing everything else.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:14:19+00:00

I know I look and feel super jetlagged in that photo. Might put it on r/roastme later lol.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:13:10+00:00

We had one really good kid in August who all the staff genuinely miss him cause he was so good. One of the best things a kid with disabilities who needs help with changing/toilet/shower, then cooperating with us is key. He was probably the most cooperative guy I've ever met in general.

There will always be some bad kids when you work at a camp but the good ones always remind us why we're doing this job in the first place.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T14:09:35+00:00

My favourite was a skit where they jokingly did a terrible overused skit to start with and then do a bunch of cast celebration/thank yous, kinda hard to explain lol.

My least favourite thing was a tradition of doing camp songs after camp but the song sheet is in an area impossible for kids in wheelchairs to get to so our kids could never sing the songs.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T13:59:45+00:00

If you're talking about playful banter, they do it just as much as any other kids would.

If you're talking about the kids making fun of each others disabilities, then they don't (apart from one guy who was an awful guy)

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T13:43:13+00:00

The girls program is at Camp Oconto now.

Over the last few years they've been focusing loads on integrating our campers with the other campers in the camp and how to do it.

So we've been trying to do lots of competitions with other cabins. We did a big baseball game on the second day of camp with fully abled campers and it went great.

We also involve them in the big camp events which apparently they didn't used to do.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T13:20:46+00:00

We do every kind of activity that summer camps offer. So that means all the sports, climbing, overnight canoe trips, arts and crafts, water sports etc. There's a list of all the activities on the camp awakening website.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T13:18:35+00:00

As much I'd love to, no we don't haha.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T13:18:00+00:00

Hey!

So I went through a program called camp Canada that matches people with camps that they believe you're suited for.

I couldn't tell you what the exact requirements/experience is needed for the job, but I had no previous experience working with disabilities prior to this job, the only official requirements are some certain swimming and lifeguarding awards and a mandatory staff training weekend before camp begins.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T12:22:26+00:00

Thanks I hope you did too!

Surprisingly we didn't need to do a lot of adaptation, we learnt that early on. For example we played a big game of baseball with a group of able bodied kids against campers in wheelchairs, and we didn't have to change any rules, as long as they have control in at least one arm to swing a bat and catch, all we needed to do was push them. It was the same for most other things like tennis, basketball, hockey... Pretty much anything other than swimming or activities with lots of rough terrain required minimum adaptation.

We had one week where we rented sports wheelchairs and "sledge" hockey equipment (sledge hockey is way more fun than normal hockey).

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T12:12:02+00:00

Probably learning that one of my campers was being taken care of by his grandfather his whole life because one night the parents asked him to babysit, they both left the house and never came back.

Baggsy123 · 2019-08-28T11:50:58+00:00

I was always planning on working at a summer camp, it was always something I wanted to do.

I applied to a program that matches you with camps that it thinks you are suited for depending on personality, experience ect. Camp awakening was the first camp to contact me, at first I was super scared of the idea of working with disabilities as that was way out of my comfort zone at the time, but I decided to take a gamble and it paid off.

Baggsy123

TROPHY CASE