Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Hershey supports 11 camps across central Pennsylvania — either directly or through camper scholarships — that welcome some 250 children with special medical needs, said Danielle Sunday, CMN director. More than 150 Penn State Health employees participate, ensuring the resources it takes to run the camps. CMN provides $200,000 in camp scholarships.
“Camp is a rite of passage that every child should get to experience,” Sunday said. “Children’s Miracle Network really focuses on providing experiences that enhance care these children wouldn’t otherwise receive on a day-to-day basis. We can reach a whole host of kids over a three-month period.”
Children come in wheelchairs, with breathing or feeding tubes, with physical and emotional needs, but they all just want to have fun, said Paula Cameron, pediatric clinical care manager at Penn State Children’s Hospital.
“It really helps them realize from a young age that, yes, they may be different from other children, but they can still do some of the same things,” Cameron said. “I think they welcome the reprieve from a life that’s often full of medications, painful procedures and doctor appointments.”
At camp, Aubree has many adventures — everything from meeting horses to feeding fish to playing kickball — that give her exercise and fill in the summer gap in services.
“Aubree has muscle weakness and low tone, so each of these activities gives her exercise and helps her meet therapy goals while she’s having fun,” Ashley Gentzler said. As a mom, Gentzler said, she loves that she doesn’t have to worry about Aubree’s medical needs because the staff knows how to handle them.
“It’s unique for parents not to have to worry about that. The respite time is huge,” said Gil Pak, operations director at the Children’s Hospital and CMN advisory board member. For parents whose children go to Vent Camp — for ventilator-dependent children who have conditions such as muscular weakness or neurological disease, spinal cord injuries or spinal muscular dystrophy — it’s literally the only week of the year when they aren’t on call 24/7, he said.
This year there was a bonus to all the activities at Camp Journey for Aubree – she told her mom she made a new friend.
“As Aubree gets older, kids start to ask more questions about why she’s different,” her mom said. “We tell her, ‘You have to love yourself. It doesn’t matter what other people say.’ But it’s so nice to have a friend who is like you.”
Now in its second year, Summer Treatment Program camp offers elementary school-aged children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and other disruptive behavior disorders, the equivalent of 3 1/2 years of therapy in a five-week camp, said Dan Waschbusch, pediatric psychologist.
Campers’ goals are to improve peer relationships, interactions with adults, academic performance and self-efficacy ― their belief in their ability to achieve goals. They do this in small group settings that teach classroom behavioral skills and how to interact positively with peers, as well as in sports and other activities. Parents are taught management skills and given tools to extend the success at home.
Participants from last year’s camp, modeled after a national program, gave it high marks, with 83 percent of children showing improved behavior and 80 percent of parents reporting it helped them with their parenting skills.
Waschbusch says the camp works because it flips expectations.
“Most psychological treatments are office-based where we try to teach skills in our adult world, and it’s up to the kids to translate them into their world,” he said. “At camp, we put treatment into the kids’ world, and we do the translating of how that works.”
Using behavior-therapy techniques, the campers earn points — redeemable for recess or toys — for behavior that meets their treatment goals. Parents are kept apprised of their child’s progress through daily report cards.
“Campers get a lot of successes while they are here because we constantly target where they are and see whether they are improving compared to themselves, not others,” Waschbusch said. “Positive reinforcement makes a difference in their behavior.”
The camp is a great vehicle for doing research-based treatment, and enhances care, he added.
“We use what the kids taught us to improve our in-office treatment,” he said.
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Children's Miracle Network supports the following camps for children with various conditions: