Carter County Drug Prevention to form its own Summer Camp
Published 8:09 am Thursday, June 27, 2019
- Contributed Photo Director Jilian Reece said they had dozens of children attend last year's "little kid conference." She said the desire to create activities children could relate to turned into a full-fledged summer camp this time around.
Carter County Drug Prevention’s “little kid conference” is expanding in scope this summer, rebranding itself as a full-on summer camp.
Director Jilian Reece said the program, initially a day or two of events, will now be a week-long summer camp.
“Our youth coalition goes to conferences every year,” Reece said. “They learned different ways to reach out to their communities.”
The younger members of the coalition, however, are typically left out of attending the larger conferences, and so they wanted an event of their own to recreate the experience.
CCDP’s Summer Camp will feature eight different activities over the first four days of the camp. Among them include a cooking class, theater and art, science classes and even cosmetology.
All programs will be available on any day, and children can choose which sessions to attend when they sign up.
“We have a lot of community partners for the classes,” she said.
On Friday, she said the fire department will put on a “splash dance” on one of the streets.
She said the summer camp provides a way for the coalition to provide outreach they might otherwise be unable to do.
“As much as I would like for students to be thrilled to learn about tobacco, that is just not realistic,” Reece said. “This is an opportunity to have a captive audience.”
She also said the camp represents a new focus for them: providing opportunities they can provide more regularly rather than one-off programs or demonstrations.
“We want to do things that are sustainable,” she said. “That makes it more challenging, but it makes them more meaningful.”
She said programs like this allow school-age children to receive information about drug-related topics from people their own age, which she said is far more effective than hearing lectures from adults. This is especially true within similar grade levels.
“Peer-to-peer support is a great strategy,” she said. “A lot of kids look up to high-schoolers, but there is value is actual peers talking to each other.”
She said the camp has a $35 registration fee, but those who are unable to afford it can call Reece at 423-342-8008 for more information. The camp itself will take place from July 29 to August 2.
