Home Away from Home

If you ask a camper to describe their camp in simple terms, they would most likely say that it’s a home away from home. To non-campers, that may sound crazy, but it's the truth for most kids who go to camp. Camp is a safe space, free of judgement and away from the stress of the outside world. It is one of the most uplifting, supportive environments, and in your teenage years - a time when you are undergoing constant and dramatic change - that kind of support is not always the easiest to come by. Personally, I can say without hesitation that camp is the place where I am happiest. Growing up going to camp has helped my mental health more than anything else and, based on popular opinion and research, it seems as though I am not the only one. A 2013 study at Orygen Youth Health Research Centre assessed the quality of life of 108 participants with mental illness before, during, and after attending an outdoor camping program. The study found that “participants demonstrated significant improvements in mastery, self-esteem and social connectedness from baseline to end of the camp.” So, what happens when we take camp, a source of support and stability, away from campers?

Enter: camp withdrawal. It may seem dramatic, but a lot of campers find returning back to normalcy after camp to be extremely difficult, and for some extent, jarring. In fact, the same study found that in a 4-week post camp check-in, many of the improvements had not been sustained and participants reverted back to their prior-to-camp mental state shortly after leaving. Personally, leaving camp, a place with no stress, and entering directly into the stressful school year is very challenging. Now, if it is difficult for campers to adjust coming home from camp, what happens if they don’t have camp at all? 

“As dramatic as it sounds, camp being cancelled was truly my worst nightmare coming true,” says Sasha Lechtzier, who is a die-hard camper turned camp counselor and Havergal Old Girl.  This is the truth for most campers. Having their happy place taken away from them left the summer feeling empty. That sandwiched between two modified and stressful school years, in the middle of a global pandemic? Well, I think it’s safe to assume it was not good for the mental health of campers. Lechtzier continues on by saying: “Camp is my happy place and to have that taken away from me felt so insurmountable to me. Especially it being taken away from me completely out of my control. Camp being cancelled had a negative effect on my mental health especially at a time during the pandemic when I really needed some good news. I felt sadness that I had never felt before.”

The phrase: “These are unprecedented times,” is one we have all heard hundreds of times by now, in regards to many different covid-related things and camp is no exception. Prior to this year, Glen Bernard Camp, my home away from home, has never had to cancel a summer in its 99 years of existence. This includes World War II and the polio outbreak. In fact, many parents sent their kids to camp in order for them to avoid polio. From a personal perspective, the cancellation of camp this summer was heart-wrenching, and the possibility that it may be cancelled this coming summer is equally as distressing. My mental health is dependent on having a sense of connectedness and stability, something that camp provided. Sasha, along with many other campers and counsellors, echoed similar thoughts. She said: “Camp is the one constant in my life- a place I can always come back to. It is a home that I can continue to return to. To lose a constant in your life is very difficult and leaves me with more uncertainty for the future than my anxiety ever has left me with before. Uncertainty feeds my anxiety which is why I was so affected by both the pandemic and the cancellation. Camp is more than just a place we all gather every summer, it is our home and I hope with everything I have that we will all get to go home next summer.”

Reference: 

Butselaar, F., & Cotton, S. (2013, July 4). Outdoor adventure camps for people with mental illness - Sue Cotton, Felicity Butselaar, 2013. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1039856213492351