Description:
The Camp Northwood program is based on the philosophy that every child needs to experience success in order to develop a positive self-image. For many children this success comes naturally in the day-to-day interactions with their peers, teachers and coaches. However, for a large population of learning challenged children, a more structured and professionally supervised setting is necessary to create an environment more conducive to success. Camp Northwood provides a support system that allows children to have successful experiences while participating in a variety of traditional camping activities. We feel that learning challenged children, in general, function best in a noncompetitive environment in which they are provided with a great deal of instructional and social support. Activities are broken down into their most elementary skills and specialists do not assume that campers have mastered age appropriate skill levels. The campers are helped to pursue the mastery of a skill at a pace that is comfortable. Most critical to the success of Camp Northwood's program is our emphasis on the development of age appropriate social skills. As with athletic and artistic talents, social skills and appropriate social behavior must be directly addressed, practiced and reinforced in order to develop at an age appropriate level. By viewing each of our more than 30 activity areas as vehicles for approaching social skill development, our campers experience numerous successes throughout the day in all aspects of the Camp Northwood program.
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