Summer Social is open for SUMMER registration!
About Our Camp
Summer Social is a half day, therapeutic camp aimed at helping children aged 5-13 learn, grow and make friends by pairing high quality teaching with fun, rewarding ways to connect with peers. We offer both spring break and summer camps.
At Summer Social, we teach concepts from the Social Thinking curriculum in order to help our campers grow their understanding of oneself and others they interact with. We want to guide our campers to act onthat understanding in order to connect in more meaningful ways with people in their lives. Pioneered by Michelle Garcia Winner, it is an internationally recognized approach to working with individuals with social cognitive deficits.
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*Social Thinking refers to our innate ability to think through and apply information to succeed in situations that require social knowledge. Social thinking is a form of intelligence that influences our ability to learn concepts and integrate and apply socially relevant information.
Group Matching
Campers are assigned to small groups containing up to 3 campers. Group composition is determined by many characteristics such as age/grade level, cognitive functioning, perspective-taking ability, language development, coping skills, interfering behaviours, and motivation. Each pod has one or more leaders responsible for lesson preparation and delivery, along with facilitating activities and games. Ensuring our campers are matched well plays a major role in our program’s success!
Higher Needs Campers
Summer Social offers a behaviour support program for campers with more significant behavioural and/or learning needs. The higher needs program runs concurrently with the regular camp session. Children requiring behavioural support are assigned a 1:1 behavioural interventionist AND matched into a small group of peers with a skilled group leader.
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All behavioural interventionists working with Summer Social have prior experience and training in ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) in addition to the training and supervision required for all Summer Social staff. Behaviour support plans are developed and supervised by Nikki Fung and Taylor Shannik, Summer Social directors and Board Certified Behaviour Analysts (BCBA), in collaboration with the child's private behaviour consultant when possible.
Continuing the Learning at Home
We believe that progress depends on caregiver involvement and continued opportunities for learning outside of Summer Social. It is important that parents and other caregivers learn the concepts and strategies along with their children to support their use of new skills at home and school.
Summer Social includes weekly Parent Talk Time where caregivers meet with the directors and program managers to review learning goals, lesson content, cueing strategies and individual progress. Attendance at Parent Talk Time is essential for supporting new skills away from camp. We ask caregivers to attend one session per week their child is at camp.
Programs & Costs
Costs below are reflective of 4 days of camp (Monday - Thursday). Children who have funding through the Autism Funding Unit are able use these funds towards the cost of the camp.
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For families paying using Autism Funding, a $250 deposit is due at time of registration after your child has been accepted into Summer Social in order to secure your child's spot. This deposit is refunded once the funding from AFU has been received in full.
For families without Autism Funding, payment in full is due at time of registration once your child has been enrolled into Summer Social.
Little Campers
$ 825/ Week
For ages 5-8
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Big Campers:
$ 825 / Week
For ages 9-13
9:00 AM- 12:00 PM
Higher Needs:
$ 1,200/ Week
For any age