Camp Carousel 2016

Camp Carousel has now posted their 2016 summer dates: Camp Carousel will be held from Monday July 18 through July 22. Most of us have heard of Camp Carousel and refer our students and their families there when they have lost a loved one, or are grieving the death of a loved one. If you have not heard of it Camp Carousel it is offered through the Hospice and Palliative Care Center in Winston Salem. It is an annual week long retreat for children (6 and up), teens and adults. The camp utilizes a multitude of therapies to assist those in coping with the loss of a loved one. We are fortunate to have such a great resource locally.

Several aspects of HPCC’s Camp Carousel—in addition to its longevity—make it unique: 

• Camp Carousel is open to children (rising first graders through rising high school seniors), teens, and adults who are mourning the death of a loved one.
• Camp Carousel is offered throughout the course of an entire week, giving participants the opportunity to “practice” at home the coping skills and education gained each day.  They can then share with their groups at Camp Carousel what seemed to work for them and areas for continued learning and growing. 
• Due to a charitable community and to the ongoing generosity of Wake Forest Baptist Health/Brenner Children’s Hospital, the weeklong experience is offered for only $25—and both Full and Partial Scholarships are given to anyone who expresses need; no one is turned away from Camp Carousel due to an inability to pay.   
• Anyone in the community who is grieving a death-related loss can attend Camp Carousel.  Like Grief Counseling Services’ client population, many Camp Carousel attendees have lost loved ones who were not involved with HPCC.  Additionally, many of the participants have lost loved ones in traumatic and sudden ways. 
• There is no time limit regarding when the death occurred.  We have attendees whose death-related losses occurred as recently as weeks prior to Camp Carousel and deaths that occurred as far as 20 years in the past.
• Camp Carousel groups are facilitated by both Grief Counseling Services counseling staff members and by dedicated and well-trained volunteers—many of them school counselors or graduate students in counseling programs at local universities.  Many Camp Carousel volunteers return year after year, dedicating much time, energy, and compassion to the required training sessions and to the weeklong Camp Carousel experience.  Without fail, these amazing volunteers report,”I truly get more out of volunteering than I give.  It’s such a gift to be able to join our campers’ on their grief journeys…”
• Camp Carousel seeks to help promote healthy mourning through small group grief sessions, creative play, art therapy, expressive movement, music therapy, animal-assisted therapy, journaling, etc.  Activities are designed to provide campers with a natural outlet for the expression and understanding of the intense—and often unfamiliar—feelings that accompany significant death-related losses.  

Here is the link to their website and registration:
http://hospicecarecenter.org/events/camp-carousel-2016

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