Our Mission

Our Philosophy

Our Camp Philosophy

By teaching children with disabilities the skills needed to participate in recreation/leisure activities, they will be better prepared to be an active and engaged member of their community throughout their entire life.

By giving children with disabilities opportunities to serve each other, their communities, and the wider world, we are teaching them that they are valued members of their own communities who have much to offer the world in service of making it a better, more accepting, and loving place.

By helping children with disabilities to value themselves, and their Camp Acacia family, they become more confident, engaged, and caring people who are good friends and active members of their community.

And, by imbuing all these actions with a deep sense of wonder and fun, children grow to see and appreciate the beauty, magic, and possibility within themselves, others and the world.

Our Philosophy of Treatment

At Camp Acacia we approach each camper with positive regard and work hard to gain insight into what makes them tick so we can create experiences, and provide care, that meets each camper’s specific needs.

We recognize that teaching children with disabilities to participate in recreation activities is more than just teaching them the technical skills or rules of a given activity, we must teach all social, emotional, and physical aspects of the activity. We do this utilizing the principles of positive youth development in a strengths-based experiential model of treatment. Being strengths-based means we always focus on what the camper can do, and does love, and teach new skills from that place. We use many modalities of treatment and education within our model in order to meet all the specific learning needs of the campers we serve.

We acknowledge that self-determined campers are motivated campers, and we strive to ensure all campers feel competent, autonomous, and connected as a valued member of our community.  We know that campers are special, not because of a diagnosis they have or needs that go along with that diagnosis, but because of who they are and everything we do is aimed at helping each camper we serve bring our what is special within them and share it with the world.

Our Core Values & Cultural Tenets

Our Core Values

We are a group of people dedicated to providing therapeutic residential camping services for children with disabilities, seeking to pursue truth and integrity, and committed to increasing the quality of life of the children we serve, their families, and our people in the process

Who we are:

• We strive to be a camp made of diverse people working together to provide exceptional services and experiences for our campers
• We strive to be honorable people
• We strive to be people focused and strength-based
• We strive to be a faith-friendly camp

What we do:

• We provide evidenced-based therapeutic residential camping services to children with disabilities
• We serve as stewards and advocates for children, and families, who allow us to serve them
• We strive, always, to provide an emotionally and physically safe work and camp environment for our team members and campers

How we do it:

• We provide exemplary evidenced-based recreational therapy services aimed at increasing camper recreation/leisure skills, ADLs, self-concept, and social skills.
• We operate with integrity and trust in all that we do
• We respect, honor, and celebrate what makes each camper we serve, and team who works with us, special
• We are constantly learning and improving in order to always be providing cutting edge services.

Our Cultural Tenets

1. We care about each other
2. We embrace and celebrate diversity
3. We do what we say we are going to do
4. We exceed expectations in all areas
5. We embrace fun as a powerful tool for positive change
6. We put safety first, always
7. We are strength-based, person focused, and always assume positive intent
8. We know everyone has something to offer the world and are always pushing people to use their special to make the world better