Camp Winacka

Camp Counselors, Camp Winacka, Julian, CA

Girl Scouts are so much fun! Nili and I had the opportunity to train camp counselors working at a residential camp in Julian, CA yesterday. Hundreds of Girl Scouts will spend up to 13 days at the residential camp this summer. In two hours, we covered respectful accommodations, examples of accommodations and practiced making accommodations to games. Counselors learned drama-based games and brainstormed ideas for making accommodations for children with different types of disabilities to participate in the games. When asked the one thing they learned in the training that they will take with them, participants commented:

• "A person doesn't necessarily need to know everything to modify an activity for everyone."
• "The thought of being purposeful and aware of the kids."
• "How easy it is to adjust games without singling kids out."
• "Sometimes what you come up with is even better than the original activity, which is pretty cool."

Even though we got lost on the way and took a very lengthy detour to get there, it was a great experience. Julian is also famous for their apple pies so we stopped on the way back for some spectacular apple boysenberry pie!

Business Travel Has its Perks!

As you can tell by the blog, the KIT team has been traveling a lot lately! This trip to Washington DC actually took place May 20-22, but we are just now finding space for it on the blog. Nili and I traveled to DC together. I was attending the Including Samuel Summit and Nili was presenting a training for the Choral Arts Society of Washington, DC.

The perks of which I speak were in this case GIANT cookies from the Firehook Bakery & Coffee House in DuPont Circle. That cookie is bigger than Nili's head! We excitedly took it back to our hotel room and devoured it while watching the season finale of American Idol. Our other great find in DC was The Darlington House restaurant. If you are headed to DC and looking for a nice meal in a lovely setting, we give this one our recommendation.

OK, it wasn't all about the food. We did do some work on the trip. Nili worked with a great group of teaching artists who go into the schools. They took KIT's Supporting Positive Behavior and Supporting Social Emotional Needs training. Nili was very impressed with this group! While Nili was training, I was at the National Education Association at a meeting led by Working Films. They pulled together a group of twenty or so representatives from national organizations supporting inclusion and disability to discuss a strategy for using Dan Habib's beautiful film Including Samuel to promote inclusion at a grass-roots level. It was a great day, and good to see so many of our colleagues and collaborators face to face.

Mary in New Mexico

This is Mary Shea again and I just completed a 3 day trip to beautiful Albuquerque, New Mexico where I did my site visit with one of our MEAF National Affiliates, the Bernalillo County Parks and Recreation Department. (By the way, there will be a test at the end of this blog to see how many of you can spell Albuquerque the first time!) I think it is one of the hardest words I have ever had to spell.

I flew on Memorial Day and I would recommend that option to anyone who doesn’t like crowded airports. It was a pretty quiet day in the skies and no one else was at the rental car counter so that was quick and I was at the hotel in downtown Albuquerque by early afternoon (of course I left my house at 4:00 am). I took a long walk downtown later in the day to get some exercise (hot and muggy weather) but it was a very quiet day because it was a holiday and few folks were downtown so it was peaceful.


Tuesday morning began with Jeffrey Paul, the Inclusion Manager for the County’s Parks and Recreation Department picking me up at the hotel and we began driving to Community Centers all across the county, which was very large and very diverse. Jeff had arranged and confirmed all the appointments so when we arrived I was able to tour the facilities and meet with staff and most directors. It was their time to ask specific questions about their programs and services as well as specific children they were supporting that they were having challenges with. It was a good day and I met with 5 of the 7 directors and approximately 18 - 20 full time staff and I was able to provide some quality site specific consultation.



The next day involved a full day of training at Mountain View Community Center where almost all staff (50 total) from the recreation department as well as 5 of the newly hired inclusion facilitators were in attendance. We did 3 of the KIT core modules (Respectful Accommodations, Supporting Positive Support, and Partnering with Families, and we addressed some specific issues in supporting children with attention deficit disorders. The staff really seemed to enjoy the training and activities and besides the fire alarm going off and having to evacuate the building quickly, the day seemed very successful and empowering to the staff. It was a very pleasant surprise to have both the Director and Assistant Director of Bernalillo Parks and Recreation Department stop by the training during the day and show their support for inclusion.

This visit was short and very busy but well planned and efficient and Jeff has done a great job in the 2 years he has been with the department. By the way, he told me he had an opportunity to apply for last minute stimulus funding that had come to their county and that is how he was able to hire 8 additional staff for summer programming! Wouldn’t that be a wonderful treat to every one of you if that was available?

Summer is finally here so wishing you all a peaceful summer and good luck with summer camps and programs and enjoy each and every day you get to spend with those joyful children whose parents have entrusted your with their care 

Training at the Montclair YMCA

Camp Directors pose for a photo after participating in a training.

I just spent the week facilitating training for the Montclair YMCA in Montclair, New Jersey. The Montclair YMCA is one of our ten national affiliate programs funded by the Mitsubishi Electric Ameria Foundation (MEAF). Since I am originally from Massachusetts, I love spending time on the East Coast. The people I had the opportunity to meet were amazing. From the Director of Development to the Program Director and Managers, Camp Directors, and After Care and Summer staff, I was impressed with the thought they put into questions and comments during trainings. We covered a lot of different topics from On Common Ground: Activities that Facilitate Inclusion to Ready, Set, Summer and discovered ways to support children with and without disabilities in programs at the Montclair YMCA. I was delighted to see an After Care Site Director facilitating an activity she learned during a training with children at her site the next day. It was great to see how she had taken the information and applied it directly to her program. The Program Directors were great hosts (see below) and I had a wonderful time getting to know them and experiencing their programs and city.

Megan Chell, Adrienne Fuller, and Alissa Lavelle