Wellness & Health Promotion, Part 2
Currently, the campers meet on hospital property, a convention which may change down the road. Another change may be in the area of scheduling. Some parents have requested the camp be held more than one session per summer. To accommodate them, the five-day program may soon be reduced to three, but the program will take place several times a year.
The educational programs offered at Camp HealthRock are interactive and this, according to Salem, is the secret of their success. Specific activities include “Mental Minutes,” a program that offers a growing-up approach to wellness, and “Living Laboratory,” where the kids tour the hospital and probe its mysteries.
Other activites consist of non-competitive games and exercise sessions. “Power Pulse” climaxes the work and play at Camp HealthRock. This activity is scheduled for day’s end, when the attention span of the average young camper is low. In Power Pulse, the kids get a choice of fun stuff to do, such as kitchen science, an introduction to the creative arts, and even a crash course in self-defense.
“The kids get a full day of fun and fitness activities,” says Salem. “Everything in the curriculum is very interactive, very hands-on. When the children tour the hospital during Living Laboratory, for example, they visit with a cardiologist, and help him to dissect a diseased cow’s heart. This sort of thing really helps to illustrate what the doctor is talking about. Other facilities in the hospital are also used to drive home the message of health- and wellness-consciousness. X-ray machines, for example, teach the kids the importance of healthy bones.”
“Some of the campers go all the way with this,” he adds. “Some parents report later that their kids wanted to reorganize the entire family trash setup to make it more environmentally friendly. That’s fine with us. Wellness is about more than your body, it’s about everything. If parents also benefit from what their kids learn at Camp HealthRock, so be it.”