Impact

At our camp, young people expand their horizons and develop to become better, well-rounded people.

While we operate a sleepaway tennis camp, all of our programs and activities are rooted in increasing social emotional learning (SEL).

Social emotional learning enhances teens’ capacity to integrate skills, attitudes and behaviors to deal effectively and ethically with daily tasks and challenges. For our teens, these skills are crucial.

We reinforce SEL principles and practices into every aspect of our program. One advantage we have of being a sleepaway camp, is that we are able to integrate SEL into their entire day, beginning with breakfast and ending when they go to sleep.

Directly after breakfast, they engage in a short meditation to practice self-awareness. We use meditation so the teens also learn ways to calm their mind during stressful situations and can bounce back from whatever comes there way. 

After meditation, the teens go back to their bunks to reflect in their journal. They write about goals they would like to achieve that day and reflect about how they are feeling. At the end of the day, they reflect on why they did or did not achieve their goal, and self-assess the way they acted on the court. This helps with self-management and self-awareness.

The teens do additional goal setting and achievement activities using a research-based framework and practice responsible and ethical decision making by discussing how to handle different difficult situations they may face. 

We use games that focus on relationship skills. By making it a game, the teens learn and have fun. After the game we debrief and the teens discuss what they learned from playing.