Summer Camp Super Powers- Part I

Here we are. Another summer camp season upon us. Even though I have worked for KIT for the past 7 years, and haven’t been in the thick of summer camp, I am still very attuned to it. Kind of like when you are in your mid-late 20’s, your school days long past, but every August you get the urge to buy some new binders, pencils and a new pair of school shoes.

On June 5th I was honored to give the keynote presentation for the American Camping Association Southern California/Hawaii Chapter’s Staff Training Day. Their theme was “Be a Camp Super Hero” and I tailored my presentation to reflect their theme. It gave me a chance to spend some time thinking about what makes someone instinctively good at including all children. I’ve seen, and I am sure you have too, some people who are just naturals. Their ability doesn’t come from any training or education they’ve had, although learning new skills is absolutely a plus. These super heroes of inclusion bring with them personality traits that serve them well in this business.

So, what are these traits? Here are my Top 4 Super Powers for inclusion in summer camp. I am going to go through them individually in the next four blog posts. I invite you to personally reflect on these. What are your super powers? Could you work on strengthening any of these areas in order to provide better service to children and families this summer?

The first one is….FLEXIBILITY. The ability to bend, stretch and contort to meet the needs of the children and families in the program, while still maintaining consistency and order.

It’s true that structure and boundaries are good for kids, and without policies your program would have a hard time functioning. But, in summer camp you also need to be able to loosen your grip on the structure so that you can see the big picture. Let’s say that after lunch each day your campers have a restful, quiet time. However, this particular day there has been an assembly in the morning where the kids were sitting for an hour or more. By lunch they have a lot of energy they need to burn off. Can you change gears and instead of more restful, quiet time can you throw in some gross motor activities? If you firmly held to the established schedule of quiet time after lunch, you may end up spending the afternoon trying to manage behavior because the kids are not getting what they needed at that moment. Make sense?

Remember to use flexibility this summer. See if you can follow the needs of the children in your care just a little bit more and see what benefits that brings to your campers, their families and to you.

On the Road Again!

Today I am packing up and getting ready for a couple of trainings on the east coast next week. I think I can speak for Nili and Alissa also when I say that we love nothing more than getting out of the office, hitting the road and talking inclusion with people. Presenting a KIT training is a wonderful give and take with the participants. We learn a lot of them, and we hope they learn a lot from us. Our trainings are designed to make people think about inclusion in both large ways and small everyday, simple ways. We want people to take their new perspectives out of the classroom and into their lives. We also want them to commit to being flexible and willing to adapt some of their ingrained practices, if it will better support a child in their care. Changing practices is very difficult, takes sustained effort and constant reminders. Knowing this, KIT staff is always there to prompt, nudge and remind. We have developed online resources and tools for people to help them on the journey. We let people at our trainings know that we are just an email or phone call away. We don’t want our trainings to be a one-shot deal. “I came, I learned about inclusion, then I went back to doing what I have always done.” No, no, no, no, no. It’s a process and we are there to support each of our learners along the way.

That’s why it is so exciting to be preparing for a trip. There will be new people to meet and invite to join us on this beautiful path of inclusion.

June 10th, The Art of Inclusion in the Theater Arts Classroom, VSA International Conference, Washington DC. Co-presenting with Imagination Stage, Inc. Our 2009 Leadership Award winners!

June 11th- Success with Challenging Behavior: ADHD and Make & Take Accommodations, Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital, Washington DC.

Safe and happy travels wherever you are headed this summer!

Don't forget to register for the KIT National Conference on Inclusion! We want to see you at the Bahia Resort in San Diego, September 29-October 1, 2010!

Patience is a Virtue

We are getting more and more impatient. Whether due to the digital revolution that puts the world at our fingertips, anywhere and anytime we want it or due to the acceleration of new innovations in general, we are increasingly not willingly to wait. I have been noticing this a lot lately- this reduction in the daily requirement to be patient and wait for something to come to me. In fact, this year I learned that you don’t even have to wait for your Girl Scout cookies anymore! Waiting a month for more for my boxes of Thin Mints used to be a way I could practice my own patience and delayed gratification. Now, as with most things, the Thin Mints are “on demand.” This led me to think about patience in general, and wonder if our sense of patience as caregivers is also declining, since we increasingly do not have to practice this virtue in our daily life.

When it comes to inclusion, patience is definitely not only a virtue, but also a requirement. Many practitioners that we work with at KIT are enthusiastic and eager to dash to the inclusion finish line. While we certainly admire their gusto, and we want them to take skillful action in ensuring that all children can meaningfully participate, we also want their inclusive practices to develop with care and thought and not with hasty, unplanned action. Inclusion will evolve and is a process, and not a product. This does not at all mean that you can wait to begin serving children with disabilities until you are ready. It means that inclusion itself is a practice that you will refine with each experience. To paraphrase the brilliant Maya Angelou “when you know better, you will do better.”

Practice patience- with yourself, your colleagues, the families you serve and most especially the children you spend your days with and you will find that inclusion unfolds naturally, before your eyes and within your heart.

Inclusion is…a process and a practice.

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Big Wisdom in a Small Package

I am really a big fan of ted.com and their compelling short videos by renowned thinkers and speakers. If you haven't experienced TED, I encourage you to check it out. Today in my email I found a link to a speech from the February 2010 TED conference presented by Adora Svitak- a 12 year old prodigy. I found it delightful to watch and such a good reminder that children have a lot to teach adults. Her presentation is short and fast-paced and she crams a lot of ideas into her allotted time, but if you listen closely you can hear some real gems.

For me, I really connected with her message when she talked about the innate creativity in children, that we sometimes lose as adults. Not to say that adults aren’t creative, but we can have a sense of “that can’t work because…” When I used to teach theatre classes I was constantly amazed at the problem solving ability of the kids in my classes. In fact, if there was something I couldn’t figure out (like, how are we going to get a quick costume change to work, or make a set change, etc) I would take it to the kids who would easily come up with something that I never would have thought of.

In our work at KIT we spend a lot of time doing consultation and helping child care and recreation programs through challenging situations. We give ideas and strategies and we do sometimes hear “that won’t work” “we tried that” or “we can’t do that.” I think that I probably have been known to judge a thought or idea before even taking the time to fully ingest it. Adora asks us to dream a little, and to bring the freshness and wonder of childhood to our adult lives.

In her speech she shares an example of an art program for kids. She says that when adults are asked to design glass, they take their inspiration from what they know to be true. When kids design, they don’t have any real experience with glass as art so they are free to express their ideas without boundaries. If we could dial back our thinking to the time when our experiences didn’t cloud our thoughts so much, we may be better able to connect to new, creative and ingenious ideas. Of course, experience is a great teacher, but I think that a healthy dose of childlike curiosity would do wonders! Listen to Adora and see what comes up for you.

Inclusion is…creativity.

Behavior- Not Just for Two-Year-Olds

Right now I am sitting at Gate A19 in the Dallas/Ft Worth airport, and taking a few moments to reflect both on the past few days and the past couple of hours. Let me start with the last few days. I was in the DC area to present a general session at a conference of almost 200 child and youth development professionals. The topic was “Exploring Challenging Behavior”. I spent two-hours explaining that “behavior is communication.” We are all communicating through our behavior all the time, I told the group. I used the example that as my audience, I was reading their behavior during the presentation. Droopy eyes? I surmise they are sleepy and introduce something energizing to wake them up. It’s the same with children. When they behave they are communicating their wants and needs to us. The difference, I explain to the group, is that as adults we have cultivated some coping skills so that we can deal with life’s challenges. Children may not yet have the ability to say “I’m feeling frustrated” and so they show you in any number of ways, some of which can be very unappealing.

So, my speaking engagement went well, and I am up early on Sunday to catch my flight home. The originating flight leaves 40 minutes late, which I know will make it very likely that I will miss my connecting flight. We are not given any information about why we were delayed in the first place, or what will happen when we arrive in Dallas. I overhear conversations like “I heard there are no more flights to California today” and I start to feel my stress level increasing. My connecting flight is scheduled for 12:30pm and the plane hits the ground at 11:55am. I’ll make it! Then, we spend 10 minutes taxing into the gate and another 5 minutes waiting for the runway staff to clear some structure from in front of the gate. “There’s still a chance,” I think. We are coming into terminal D and my next flight is all the way over in terminal A. Rats! Then the guy in front of me stops in the aisle to answer his cell phone while exiting the plane, and by now I am very upset and it is starting to show. I am visibly fidgeting and I know that my face is revealing my frustration with both the situation and the guy who is holding up all the anxious people behind him. I run like I am being chased through a jungle by a hungry tiger and I just miss my flight. And I do mean “just.” By probably two minutes. By now I am almost in full-fledged toddler-tantrum mode. The woman in line in front of me asks me a benign question and I give her a terse reply. I am very, very close to full-fledged meltdown. I feel my eyes get moist as I ask the gate agent for help. After getting a new boarding pass (for a flight that was just two hours later), I head to the women’s room to dry my tears and take a few deep breaths.

I suddenly get the irony of the time I spent this weekend teaching people about children’s challenging behavior, and then displaying quite a good dose of it myself. Where were those coping skills I supposedly had developed? I actually practice a lot of yoga and meditation, where the goal is calmness no matter the circumstances. I certainly had failed the airport test. As human’s we are tested when life does not meet our expectations. We can feel stress when we are not in control of our circumstances. It does not matter if you are four-years-old or, in my case, 41 years old. As adults, I told my audience, we are helping children build skills when we support them in their own behavior change. I think I am going to have to do a little extra work with my own inner child!

Inclusion is…understanding that behavior is a method of communication.

Keep On Keepin' On- How Do You Do It?

Over the past couple of months Nili, Alissa and I have been presenting live training and conference presentations here, there and everywhere. We love doing this, because we love the live interaction of participants right there in the room with us. Alissa pointed this out to me today- she and Nili have been doing a lot of training via webinar, which is efficient and definitely a product of this economy. Alissa mentioned that as a presenter the webinar is a very different experience because you aren’t getting the constant feedback from the audience like you are in a live setting- are they sleepy? Confused? Excited? Who is staying with the pace, and who needs more time with the concept? We can get all this from seeing your face, watching your body language and feeling that unseen “vibe” in the room.

There is also more time in a live setting, and that informal time before and after to engage with participants. I find that before and after time very valuable. It helps me gage how the people in the field are generally doing. I get a temperature check- totally unscientific, but I get a sense about how people in our field are managing.

So, over the past few months in these informal conversations with training participants we’ve heard some real challenges that programs are facing. Which led me to wonder how these professionals are staying motivated in their jobs. Challenges are bound to come up, but they can really sap your energy, drain your staff and cause a less than stable social-emotional environment in a program. I guess my real question is, when you’ve got an enduring challenge- be it with a child, their parent or even an outside influence like administration or the economy, what keeps you motivated? What gets you up, dressed and to work everyday? We know from the research that people in care-giving fields are very susceptible to burn-out, and you add to that a paycheck that’s nothing to write home about and the cultural perspective that we are “just babysitting” (that’s changing, right?) and what is it that keeps us in our jobs?

I am really asking for your thoughts and ideas on this one. You may be wondering how this relates to inclusion. To me, the connection is clearly that inclusion is most successful when the people providing the programs bring their best self to work. They provide a consistent emotional tone, without a lot of dramatic highs and lows and children know what to expect from the staff, from the schedule and from the environment. Not to say that there won’t be a few fun surprises now and then (what do you mean there is a pony on the playground??), but our goal should be stability in our programs. If the staff is under a great deal of stress, stability is threatened, which can lead to challenging behaviors by the kids in your program, which contributes to more stress for the staff… I think you are getting the idea.

Inclusion is….important and requires that adults caring for children are capable of managing their own stress.

Drop a comment and share what you do to stay motivated or how you motivate your staff. I hope we’ll generate some great tips and learn from each other!

Heroes come in all sizes

First of all, thanks to Janet George of Child Care Services in Raleigh, North Carolina for sending me the link to this absolutely charming video. Before getting to the video, just let me say that Janet George is one of those people that sees the best in everyone. She trains the KIT Opening Doors to Inclusive Programs series in North Carolina, and is a very, very passionate and dynamic advocate for inclusion.

OK, now, back to the video. If you’ve attended many KIT trainings the first thing you may notice about this video is that the reporter uses dignifying language (“the child has autism”), but what really got me was the little charmer featured in the story. Click on the link and watch the video, then meet me back here.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8840563

Did you watch it? How great is this story? A child with a disability (who I will admit to being partial to since he does have red hair) learns the Heimlich maneuver in Cub Scouts and then applies it to save the life of his teacher. Do you see where I am going with this? INCLUSION SAVES LIVES!! I might have to get that on a t-shirt or a bumper sticker. Seriously though, this child acquired a skill in a recreational setting, and pulled it out of his pocket when it was needed most. We know that scouting programs teach very valuable life skills; skills that all children need and will serve them well in throughout their life. Let’s all do what we can to ensure that children like our little red-headed friend here have the opportunities to participate in these typical childhood activities.

I love how the teacher is getting emotional about his saving her life, and he is kind of blasé about the whole thing. I love how he says it’s his “first time saving a life” as if he expects he will save many more lives in the future. My absolute favorite moment, though, is when he asks the reporter “Can we get back to the part about me being a hero?” This, of course, shatters a common misconception that children with autism don’t want to interact socially or can’t be empathetic. Let’s all say it together- HE SAVED HIS TEACHER’S LIFE! If grabbing a choking adult around the gut to save her life isn’t social and empathetic, I don’t what is. How many of us would have the courage to do the same in an emergency situation?

Is this child a hero? In my book, absolutely. He did the hard thing, when it was needed the most.

Inclusion is….inspiring.

Finding the Zen in Inclusion, Part 1

MC Yogi - Give Love (Giving4Living Mix) from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

At KIT we have a number of venues for people who work in child and youth programs to request consultation and help from our staff. In particular, Nili Mathews on the KIT staff provides a great deal of personalized service helping child care and recreation providers work through challenging situations in inclusion. As we debrief some of the calls in our weekly meetings, I have noticed that lately the calls are peppered with a healthy dose of desperation. Now, you have to figure that a call coming into a helpline comes with a certain amount of urgency. However, there is another quality that I have noticed in the past few months, and that is emotion. We’ve heard tell of staff members at youth programs spending a lot of time crying the break room, threatening to quit or just being exasperated and at their wits end over the process of ensuring that a child (whether a two year-old or a ten year-old) can be successful in the program setting.

So, this increased level of emotion and stress in trying to serve children and families will be the theme of my multi-part series “Finding the Zen in Inclusion.” Over the past two years I have been studying yoga and ayurveda, and I have been amazed at how the tenets of yoga have applied so seamlessly to my everyday life. Be sure that this has not a lot to do with organized religion. By offering these thoughts, I do not attempt to take away from your own beliefs, but merely to provide some ideas and maybe even a tool or two that can be useful in dialing down the drama.

Today’s offering is “View everyone as an extension of yourself” (Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, Deepak Chopra, 2009). I encourage you to practice this when you are having a difficult conversation with a parent, or working through a challenging behavior with a child. Too often we take sides and become adversaries, when what we need to do is find a common sympathy that links us all together. How much love can you give? How much generosity of spirit can you show a child who is pushing all of your buttons? I know it isn’t easy. I know that when you have 30 other children (or more) to serve, and the families they are attached to, that your love and energy is spread pretty thin. But, this is a practice. Give it a try and see what happens when you align yourself with the situation, rather than putting a wall between you and it.

Be sure that this practice of finding one-ness with others is not the same as taking everything personally. It could be that the elevated emotion we are hearing about is because people are taking their jobs, and the tough situations, very personally. It’s an occupational hazard in this field of caring for others. Taking something personally has a flavor of “this is about me and what I have or have not been able to make happen.” Engaging in one-ness with others is more about finding that common place where we can connect with others and find “agreement, consensus and reconciliation” (Chopra).

I give you this MC Yogi video called “Give Love” to enjoy. Please use the comments to discuss.

Inclusion is….about a collective consciousness.

Can a 7 pound newborn move a full-grown woman?

I recently became an aunt to the first baby in my husband and my combined families. I’d been eager to be an aunt for the last 20 years, but I really had no idea what a moving and profound experience it would be. My career has been dedicated to improving the lives of children, and although it has taken several twists and turns along the way, it has always been about making the world a better place for children. I don’t have any children of my own, and up until December 7 no one else in my family did either. In my past work in direct care, parents have occasionally told me that because I don’t have kids I “can’t fully understand.” I will admit to feeling a little offended by this accusation. However, experience is our greatest teacher. The picture is of me holding my nephew when he is 5 days old. As I held him in my arms I gained an even deeper understanding of inclusion- one which parents know from first-hand experience. This child, my nephew, all hope and possibility, deserves to have a life full of love, happiness, friendship and belonging. It’s what we hope for our children. He will bring a lot to the party. His strengths, the skills he learns, the love he has to offer others. Undoubtedly, he will have areas of challenge as well. It’s impossible to know what those will be, but I don’t think any of us gets through this life without facing some of our own personal challenges.

A challenge he should not have to face is being included in community life. Nothing should keep him from the opportunity to play a recreational team sport if he wants to. Or take an art class (his dad, my brother, is a celebrated tattoo artist so an art class could very well be in his future!). Or go to summer camp. And yet, if it is determined by someone, in some school or program, that his needs are too great or his challenges too challenging, that is exactly what could happen. I mull this over as I hold the little 7 pound bundle of love in my arms. I think of all of the parents I know, and of all of the parents of children with disabilities I know and respect through my work. I know they have had this moment, and many other afterwards, dreaming about a future full of love, joy and positive experiences for their child and their family. I silently re-dedicate myself to working even harder than before to ensure that people welcome children- regardless of their ability- to participate, to experience and to belong.

Before December 7 I was a passionate advocate for inclusion. I spend most of my time communicating the benefits of inclusion to others who work in early childhood, recreation and youth development programs. I believe in it whole-heartedly. Now that I have held the mystery of a newborn child in my arms and thought about what the future might hold for him, I own and embody the philosophy of inclusion deep in my soul in a way that I didn’t even know was possible.

Inclusion is…a belief in the value and possibility of a life.

Has a child taught you an important lesson? Have you been changed by an experience in a way you didn’t expect? Please leave a comment and share your experience.

New Year & New Youthful Energy!

OK, admittedly, it has been a long time since any of our KIT staff has had the time to blog here. Behind the scenes we are working on a re-vamp of our website, which will include a new blog, new opportunities for you to interact with your colleagues around the country and (thank goodness) an easier to navigate site map. So, this little blog has been sort of "back burner."

However, something happened this past weekend that I could not resist sharing. Twenty incredible teenagers, leaders and advocates in their own communities around the country, came together for the first National Youth Inclusion Summit. The event was held in Bethesda, MD at Imagination Stage (one of KIT's MEAF National Affiliates) and was initiated by Dan Habib's Including Samuel documentary project, and a team of collaborators. Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation, the National Inclusion Project, Girl Scouts USA, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, KIT, the Victor Paneda Foundation, Fleishman Hillard and others supported the event as funders, facilitators, coordinators and evaluators. Guiding the youth through their work was disability rights advocate and poet Lederick Horne

The young people involved were required to hold a viewing party of Including Samuel in their community. They also completed an extensive application, where they shared their thoughts about inclusion. A panel selected 20 youth to travel to the DC area for the summit, with the goal of creating a national youth-driven message campaign about inclusion.

What a dynamic and inspiring weekend! These young people are already such leaders in their own communities, and bringing them together created an incredible energy. They discussed, created, negotiated, thought and in the end produced two short public service announcements. There is still a lot of work to be done on creating a campaign, but what a great start.

I was so grateful to have the opportunity to participate in the Youth Summit and see that there are strong inclusion advocates right behind us. It makes me feel good about the future of inclusion. A special shout out to the San Diego participants- Malia Rappaport, Tali Rappaport and Jordan Moore.