It’s better than ice cream—Camp Wimodausis Virtual delivers cool thoughts and fun summer activities for children experiencing increasing mental health challenges

TORONTO, ON—Here’s a cool thought: Camp Wimodausis Virtual is bringing the benefits of summer camp home, teaching children how to melt away negative thoughts and scoop them into positive coping skills.

“Camp Wimodausis has always been a great solution to many families as very few camps are capable of supporting children with serious mental health issues such as disruptive behaviours,” said Abdi Mohamud, Child Development Institute (CDI)’s SNAP Youth Leadership Services Coordinator. “Camp Wimodausis Virtual provides families with flexible, accessible mental health support by maximizing opportunities of success in emotion regulation skills through meaningful programming,” Mohamud added.

Children and youth with serious disruptive behaviours can lash out and injure themselves or others, have trouble maintaining friendships and are often left out from many social situations like summer camp.

Social isolation and upended daily routines brought on by COVID-19 are further complicating the mental health of children and youth. According to Children’s Mental Health Ontario (CMHO), symptoms in children with pre-existing mental health issues are worsening with a higher risk of anxiety, stress and psychological impacts since the onset of the pandemic.

Camp Wimodausis Virtual provides children and youth with serious disruptive behaviours a safe space to express themselves freely. Rooted in CDI’s evidence-based early intervention model, Stop Now and Plan (SNAP®), Camp Wimodausis Virtual teaches participants how to recognize hard thoughts and turn them into positive motivational thinking, known as ‘cool thoughts’. By identifying the need to cool themselves from big moments of frustration, participants cultivate critical life-long tools such as emotion regulation, self-control and confidence to develop into happy, healthy adults.

This year, Camp Wimodausis Virtual is adding in a personalized camp-in-a-box for each individual, filled with all the materials needed for camp activities, including arts and crafts, maze runs and other team games that help campers face negative hard thoughts and transform them into positive plans of action.

Children ages 6-11 can enjoy Camp Wimodausis Virtual between July 5-23 and August 2-20, 2021, with registrations starting this April.

Parents/caregivers can click here for the online camp registration.

To learn more about Camp Wimodausis, visit stopnowandplan.com.