Camp Carousel 2015

http://hospicecarecenter.org/events/camp-carousel-2015

I'm re-posting this blog I wrote last year about Camp Carousel.  This year's camp will be held July 27, 2015 through July 31, 2015.  As you will read in my post, it is a special camp for children dealing with grief and loss.  

by Angela Smith, School Psychologist

This is the time of year parents start thinking about summer camps.  As the mother of two active children, I like to plan our summer activities well in advance of the summer months.  In April of 2010, I was doing just that when my father passed away after a valiant six-year battle with cancer.  Although I had tried to prepare myself and my family for his passing, the reality is that you can never truly be ready for that time.  I immediately knew I would be adding Camp Carousel to the list of camps they would be attending that summer.  As a school psychologist with the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools for the past 15 years, I have referred numerous families to that camp and the feedback has always been positive. 

I recently asked my daughter what she remembered about her experience at Camp Carousel.  She attended three years ago when she was only six years old but still remembers, “We did fun activities that helped me not feel so sad about Papa.”  My son still displays the special items he made at camp to remember his grandfather.

According to Donna Hampton, Director of Grief & Bereavement Services at Hospice & Palliative CareCenter (HPCC), the camp provides the participants with many coping skills necessary to deal with all kinds of life's stresses, not just those caused by a loss.  She added that the counselors offer direction to parents on ways to better understand their child’s grief process.  Here is more information from Ms. Hampton about the camp and the theme for this year.

This year is a milestone for Camp Carousel, as 2014 marks the 25^th Anniversary of Camp Carousel.  Fittingly, the theme for Camp Carousel 2014 is “Road Trip,” as grief is indeed a journey—and not an experience with a distinct beginning and end.  As Angela notes, her children continue to treasure the support gained and objects created at Camp Carousel; they will continue to miss their grandfather’s presence throughout their lives, but left Camp Carousel with new ways to cope and remember.  The ultimate goals of all the programs offered by Grief Counseling Services (GCS)—including Camp Carousel—is to help people remember their loved ones with less pain and to develop skills to help them cope with the pain of death-related losses.  

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.  

For more information about Camp Carousel, contact Donna Hampton at 336-331-1319 or visit Hospice & Palliative CareCenter’s website:  www.HospiceCareCenter.org . You may also e-mail CampCarousel@HospiceCareCenter.org .