Hillsboro, NH (8/4/22) — Wediko announced today that Camp Wediko, its six-week residential summer camp for children ages 8-18 struggling with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, hosted its annual Visitor’s Day last week. Visitor’s Day is when family members and caregivers get to visit their campers on campus.

Campers showed their families around the campus, participated in their favorite activities, like fishing and playing games together, where campers could demonstrate their social skills and confidence. Some families brought comfort from home in the form of favorite foods and even pets that the kids missed. Food was also provided so that all families and campers could enjoy picnics together on the 450-acre lakefront campus. Visitor’s Day was also an opportunity for campers to introduce their families to their new friends, meet the staff, and for families to connect and engage with each other.

“On Visitor’s Day, halfway through the camp session, families and caregivers come to see their loved one at the camp,” says Program Director Jessica Luddy-Fernandez, LICSW. “Our kiddos have been given many labels throughout their lives, and they’ve carried those labels for a long time. Once they get to camp, they’re not that “bad kid” anymore, because they have peers who are like them, who get it. They get to emerge and develop true friendships. For the caregivers, they are witnessing a new version of their kiddo for the very first time. Three weeks into Camp Wediko, you can already see and feel the difference.”

The 45-day therapeutic camp for all genders specializes in working with children with ADHD, anxiety, Asperger’s, and mood disorders. Campers live with groups of 6-8 peers (plus staff) in cabins nestled throughout campus, eat in a dining hall, and spend their days in constant motion. A typical day ​includes multiple structured activity periods such as swimming, canoeing, art, archery, dance, athletics, brain games, theater, yoga, and mountain biking. Daily activities also include a literacy and math/science academic curriculum to help campers practice translating the social and emotional skills they are learning at Camp Wediko into the classroom environment.

Wediko’s therapeutic milieu is the primary intervention, where staff and clinicians develop strong relationships with each camper, focus on the camper’s strengths, and help them make social and emotional gains. The staff to camper ratio is 1:2, which allows Camp Wediko to provide active, intensive supports to campers and to challenge each camper individually.

Clinicians live on campus so they can work with campers every day ​and in-the-moment, within the context of ​the program. Clinicians also facilitate daily group therapy and ​develop individual and group interventions to support each camper.

About The Wediko School

The Wediko School is a residential treatment center offering therapeutic and educational services for middle- and high-school-aged boys experiencing significant social-emotional, behavioral, and educational challenges. A program of The Home for Little Wanderers, The Wediko School’s social workers, psychologists, and special education teachers guide students through an intensive milieu of academics and therapy. For more information, visit thewedikoschool.org.