Inclusive recreation

My name is Christina McCormick. I'm with the City of Ottawa in the Parks and Recreation Department within Inclusive Recreation.
What summer camps does the city offer for people with disabilities?
We have integrated camps as well as more specialized or adapted camps. Within our integrated camps we have shared care support for children with disabilities to help them integrate in our summer camp programs. They can take up to two weeks of camp and they would register into the regular camp setting as well as the support.
We also offer what we call support the mentor support. The mentor would come around to each camp to help with the more mild to moderate children who have disabilities kind of integrate into the camp. So an example of an integration might be a reward system, or if they're used to reminders, making sure those are in place. The other option as well is if you have a child with a special with a disability who has their own support worker, there are always welcome to come to camp
What about specialized or adapted programs?
We have a program for children with complex needs, the Spirit program, which is a referral basis. So you would contact your inclusive recreation coordinator to register into that camp to make sure it's a good fit. We also have our Rock, Rattle and Roll for adults with more medically fragile needs as well. We also have our summer plus program. We have up to five camps across the city of Ottawa. We have also a sixth program in French and that's for adults with developmental disabilities where they go out into the community. They do some different activities throughout the day, just like a regular camp, but more in a specialized environment with specialized staff. We also have our social recreation camps specifically at Hintonburg Community Center. They also have camps there for adults with disabilities.
Which camp is right for you?
Reach out to the inclusive coordinator in your area to, you know, to set up a meeting, possibly talk to you over the phone and try to figure out what the best camp is.
It will depend on the specific disability of the individual. It could also be specific to age as well as the criteria. So ensuring it's the right fit for that person. The other thing you can do is reach out to the email below to get more information. Ensure that you have enough information about the camp. We do have descriptions of the camp, so please make sure to read those over, but we're always willing to help, if you have any questions.
How can the participants needs be accommodated within our summer camps?
Once registered, you would get a phone call or an email asking to set up an intake.
With that intake, we would meet at a recreation center close to you. We would go over the criteria for the program. So we would go over the criteria and ensure that it's the right fit for your participant, whether it's an adult or a child. We go over the needs of the person. Every individual with a disability that is different and they have different needs, such as everybody does. So just reviewing their needs, what works well at home, what works well at school. So that way we can try to incorporate it as best we can within the summer camps.
So you can actually start viewing the summer camps on January 2nd. As far as shared care goals, please remember that it's important to register for the camp of your choice as well as for the shared care support. The other piece too, is that our programs do fill up quickly. It's important that if you aren't able to get in to put yourself on the waitlist and let the inclusive coordinator in your area know that they're on the waitlist. Once you are registered, the inclusive coordinator person in your area will contact you. You can also reach out to them as well to set up that intake to ensure it's the right fit for your participant. Also, just to note our Spirit and our Rock, Rattle and Roll program, they are actually by referral. So if you are interested in either of those programs, please reach out to the coordinator and they can walk you through that process.
Are there forms to fill out before the participant can start camp?
We would also ask within all of our camps we have enrollment forms. We would get those all filled out so you wouldn't have to worry about those kinds of things as well as if they take medication and if there's trip forms as well. The other thing too, is if you're already registered into the program, an inclusive coordinator would reach out to you before the camp begins. Luckily, this year we're registering fairly early, so it'll be good to get all that information ahead of time. So the more information that you can give us, the better and it'll be more successful. But for the participant within the program.
Is there financial assistance available?
We do have our Ottawa Hand in Hand program, which we offer within recreation for low income families as well as people who are on ODSP. We also have the Play Free
initiative that we're continuing with, as well as the overall 10% discount for some children's summer camps.
Tell us more about the summer camp staff at inclusive recreation.
When we hire the staff, we ask that they have an education in a related field. So it could be that they're working towards their psychology degree or they're in the developmental service worker program or the autism program. or the Child and Youth worker program. So we hire staff who have that kind of education. We also hire staff who have experience working with children and youth or adults with disabilities in camp setting in school settings. We also provide them with crisis prevention, intervention training.
We ask that all staff come with a recent vulnerable sector police record check and we provide onsite training within the camp, as well as our own Inclusive Recreation training.
What can participants expect from their summer camp?
So of course it depends on the camp that you choose. So if it's more specialized or adapted versus inclusive,but overall, most camps will have group games. We might have some craft or art activities as well as physical games. A lot of the camps do as well go swimming. They may go on a community outing to a museum or park. You might have special guests come to us. So maybe having a magician on site or someone to sing with us, or do Zumba, whatever the case may be.
What if I wasn’t able to register for a City of Ottawa summer camp?
So what we do is we compile a resource list of all the camps within the region of Ottawa, so we have some pretty close relationships with them. And what we do is we can offer the families or the caregivers a list of those resources so they're aware of other camps that are are possibly close to them that would work better for the participant or that might work in tandem with with our city programs. So just to know that's out there, you can always reach out to your inclusive coordinator within your district. You can also again, you can contact the email below for inclusive recreation, and we'd be glad to send you some resources of other camps as well.