Comforting summer campers with specialized support

For many sport, wilderness, and mountain bike participants, a full day of summer camp isn’t always as easy as a walk in the (Canada Olympic) Park. 

Given that frank reality, a pair of new Team Members were brought on this summer to make sure struggling campers still felt seen and heard. 

Enter Alyssa and Mollie, who feverously filled WinSport’s two new Inclusion Facilitator roles in mid-June, ensuring everyone could be a part of the fun. 

“At WinSport, we worked with every single summer camp,” says Alyssa. “Our job was to help different kids with different disabilities stay in camp and have the best time at camp.” 

Regardless of circumstances, WinSport believes nobody should be stuck on the sidelines. 

“If they were having behavioural issues, getting overstimulated, were super stressed, or were feeling homesick, our job was to be there to help support them,” says Mollie. “We helped them get emotionally regulated and calmed them down.” 

Parents could notify WinSport in advance of their child’s anticipated needs, or the Inclusion Facilitators would identify issues on their own before stepping in to do what they do best. 

“Parents could reach out to us through the inclusion email (inclusion@winsport.ca) if they thought their kid was going to need extra support,” explains Mollie. “We’d take a phone call with them and go through a list of questions to kind of get to know the kids through the parents. Those kids could also ask for us specifically after we introduced ourselves to the kids and the parents at the beginning of the day. If they needed to go for a walk or wanted to take some time away or needed some time in our busy room, we were happy to help them get regulated again.” 

Through eight weeks of summer camps, the Inclusion Facilitators made their way all around campus to assist approximately 10-15 different kids per week. They would spend roughly 30 minutes with each dysregulated participant, or until the campers’ behaviours and emotions were restored. 

Alyssa, who has since returned to Mount Royal University for her Physical Literacy degree, sees a strong correlation between her employment and education. 

“In my physical literacy degree, we look at the four domains of the individual: physical, emotional, social, and cognitive,” Alyssa says. “We look at each of those separately and see what we can do to help make a person more independent. This job is amazing because we do deal with a lot of emotional, social, and even sometimes physical disabilities. Being able to translate the learnings from school into this job, and now this job into school, pairs well.” 

Whether presented with challenges related to ADHD, autism, communication, or the like, Mollie’s first-hand experience came in handy to help kids get back on track. Growing up herself with undiagnosed ADHD, she has also been there for others in similar situations. Mollie volunteered in schools and worked at the Alberta Children's Hospital, as well as with a group which integrates kids with disabilities back into sports. 

While being a benefit to the summers campers was always the main objective, the Inclusion Facilitators themselves consider the experience as extremely rewarding. 

“The kids impacted me a lot,” says Alyssa. “I gained so much experience and knowledge from working with the kids. I learned things that I did not think I would know. It was just so awesome learning different perspectives and watching them grow.”