September 3, 2025 • 30 mins
Lizzie Eastham and Sam Rickard present Studio 1 - Vision Australia Radio’s weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view.
On this week’s show
“Camp Abilities Part 2”
Lizzie talks to Lauren Lieberman, director of Camp Abilities. Lauren talks about her background; how she started Camp Abilities; and some of the successes.
Studio 1 welcomes any input from our listeners. If you have any experience or thoughts about issues covered in this episode or believe there is something we should be talking about.
EMAIL: studio1@visionaustralia.org or leave comment on the station’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/VARadioNetwork
A special thank you to Lauren.
You can find out more here: https://www.campabilities.org/
Camp Abilities World: https://campabilitiesworld.com/
This program was made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at https://cbf.org.au/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:14):
This is Studio One with Sam Rickard and Lizzie Eastham
on Vision Australia Radio.
S2 (00:24):
Hello, I'm Sam and I'm Lizzie and this is Studio One,
your weekly look at life from a low vision and
blind point of view. Here on Vision Australia Radio.
S3 (00:32):
This week we continue our look at camp abilities in
the US. I chat with Lauren Lieberman, the director, about
how this initiative began and what got her into adapted
physical education.
S2 (00:44):
As we always say at this point, please do get
in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of
any of the issues covered on this week's episode of
Studio One, or if you think there's something we should
be talking about. You never know. Your story and insight
may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.
S3 (01:00):
You can email us at studio One at Vision Australia. Org.
That's studio number one at Vision Australia. Org or of course,
you can drop us a note on the station's Facebook
page by going to facebook.com Slash VA Radio Network.
S2 (01:15):
So. Hello, Lizzie. Yeah. How are we going this fine morning?
How is the new dog settling in?
S3 (01:19):
The new dog is a little bit unsure and timid,
but I'm sure we'll get along just fine. Yep.
S2 (01:25):
So you've brought us a second part to this, uh,
wonderful set of, um, well, stories and insights, really, which
is what we kind of do. And it is so
nice to be able to to actually deliver on a
two part story.
S3 (01:40):
What could you possibly be talking about there?
S2 (01:42):
Oh, nothing in particular.
S3 (01:44):
Uh, do you need some, uh, some, you know, some.
S2 (01:49):
Uh, no, no, no. Um, I've just got something stuck
up my nose. Yeah. Um, anyway, onwards and upwards to
the interview.
S3 (01:57):
Lauren, welcome to studio one. It is so good to
have you.
S4 (02:01):
Thank you so much, Lizzie, for inviting me.
S3 (02:03):
So we spoke to Lily piccolo last week, who was
one of the coaches at camp abilities. But for anyone
that missed that particular program, can you explain to us
what camp abilities is?
S4 (02:16):
Sure. Camp abilities is a sports camp for children with
visual impairments. It's an overnight week long camp, and we
focus on after school sports, which in the US many
high schools have after school sports teams. We also focus
on Paralympic sports that our athletes will be able to
play when they get older and hopefully in the Paralympics.
(02:39):
And then we also teach them a lot of different
recreation skills socialization, self-determination, independent living skills, mobility skills. And
we have an amazing time doing it. Now we do
have camp abilities across the US and in other countries,
and some camps are a little shorter. But all the
camps focus on educational sports and skill development and training.
S3 (03:02):
So how long has camp abilities been going? Because I
can't imagine that this year was your first year.
S4 (03:07):
This was our 30th year.
S3 (03:09):
And who started this initiative and how did it actually
come about?
S4 (03:13):
That's a great question. So in 1995, I started my
job at Suny Brockport, and I realized that our kids
with visual impairments were not going to get a lot
of opportunities from their physical education teachers because they didn't
know how to teach them. So I started Camp Abilities
in 1996, and since then it has spread all across
(03:34):
the US and in other countries.
S3 (03:36):
What made you want to face these barriers or look
at these barriers and start teaching adaptive sports?
S4 (03:44):
I got my undergrad in adaptive physical education, my master's
in adaptive physical education, and then I taught at a
school for the blind called Perkins School for the Blind
in Boston. And I taught in the deaf blind program,
and I coached there. And then I got my doctorate
in adaptive physical education from Oregon State University. And so
(04:04):
my background was all in adaptive PE, and that's what
I was hired to teach at Suny Brockport. So I
was running programs on campus and all my students, I
realized they were not going to be able to teach
kids with visual impairments if I didn't do something or
start a program. So that's why I started Camp Abilities,
because this gives our students, and then all the other
(04:26):
students from other universities that come to Brockport, experience and exposure,
teaching kids with visual impairments. And so their knowledge and
their confidence in teaching kids with visual impairment is going
to spread to the other teachers that they teach and
to any programs where they go. And many of my
former students and people that participate in camps like Lily
(04:49):
leave camp going, oh my God, I got to start
one of these near me. And then they start one
where they live.
S3 (04:54):
Oh yeah, she's definitely been raving about starting a camp
abilities in New South Wales in particular, which is really cool.
I mean, she had a lot to say about her
experience at camp abilities, but I just want to bring
the focus back to you for a second. So before
you started your education and studies in adaptive physical education.
(05:16):
Had you had any lived experience with blindness or vision impairment?
S4 (05:20):
So, interestingly, not growing up. But I do have three
siblings and they all have some form of disability. It's
mild and my sister has a bilateral hearing loss, so
she's hard of hearing. And my brothers both had learning disabilities.
And I mean they still do. But we as a
family had to work on their therapy to get them
more developmentally on track, like both my brothers had to
(05:43):
repeat first grade. And so growing up, it was always like,
everybody has to meet their potential and you have to
do it as a team. Like there was no choice
whether we did their exercises or not. We did their exercises.
And so then fast forward, you know, to college. And
I got into adapted physical education more so because I
(06:04):
felt like it was more challenging than just regular general
physical education. But I also think it's more respected because
it is special education. But in the process, in my college,
we had a program for adults with visual impairment. So
I volunteered for that. And then I was actually chosen
to volunteer for a cross country ski program with adults
(06:27):
called ski for light. So I'm a senior in college,
and I volunteered in this rural program, and there are
people there from like New York City and Maryland, new Jersey,
these were all adults who were blind. And I'm teaching
cross country skiing. I teach this woman. Maybe she was 40,
had a cross country ski, and she got really good
during the course of the week. It was a week
long program and she turned to me and said, Lauren,
(06:50):
I never could have done this without you. It was
like a drug. And I was like, I'm good at something. Wow,
I need to do this. This has to be part
of my life. That was undergrad. That was like my
senior year, my last semester. So I said, all right,
I'm going to combine visual impairment with whatever I do.
But at the same time, I was also learning sign language,
and I was interested in teaching deaf kids. And so
(07:12):
after my master's program, when the job opened at Perkins
School for the blind, I interviewed for a job there.
And then I got a job in the deaf blind program.
So I literally started my career in visual impairment as
the physical education teacher in the deaf blind program, and
I coached there swimming, goalball, track and field and absolutely
(07:34):
loved it. So when I went back for my doctorate,
I said, you know, I'm just going to focus everything
on sensory impairment. And that's what led me to focus
on visual impairment when I got to Brockport in 1995.
S3 (07:46):
In terms of forming capabilities, what was the process? How
did you get it started? What sort of help did
you require?
S4 (07:52):
It's funny you should say that because it was literally
my first year at the university. And so I'm not
only navigating like, who even is in charge of the dorms,
who even is responsible for food? Like, how do I
navigate this huge university system? Where are the blind kids?
Where do I get equipment? Like, all of that was
(08:13):
so brand new, and I had to do it by
myself because I didn't have graduate students at the time,
and that was before internet or cell phones. So I
literally was in my office 12 to 14 hours every day,
not just planning my classes, but also trying to navigate
this huge system of it's not bureaucracy. It just was
(08:33):
hard to navigate because I didn't know who was in
charge or the politics of anything. I had to write grants. Luckily,
one of the grants that I wrote it was only $13,000,
but it was enough for me to think people see
value in this. People think that kids learning sports who
are blind, that's important, that's valuable. And so that won $13,000.
(08:55):
Grant turned into a summer with 27 kids a week
long camp. I owed $5,000 at the end of that summer.
And so then the next summer, I got a little
more grant money. I had another camp with more kids.
I think we had 45 or 50 kids that second year,
and I owed $5,000 at the end of that year, too.
(09:16):
So it took me a while to realize I need
to charge the parents a bit more money. You know,
because I was ending up having to fundraise from the
year before in order to make enough money to have
the camp the next year.
S3 (09:28):
So in terms of getting the coaches and people on
board to help out the volunteers for the first camp,
how did you go about that?
S4 (09:35):
That's a great question. We have a concentration in adapted
physical education at my university, and we also have a
master's program. So I recruited my own students. I recruited
students from Suny Cortland, which is another State University of
New York and then Adelphi University. I even got some
high school students. Oh, and Westchester University. So I went
(09:58):
to undergraduate school at Westchester University in Pennsylvania, and my
former professor, Monica Lepore, brought up her daughter, who at
the time she was seven when we first started the camp.
And then she would bring 4 or 5 students. And
then as we went on, monika's students that she brought,
even after they graduated, they'd still come and help me.
(10:18):
And then she would bring more students. So it was
like West Chester University, Suny Brockport, Suny Cortland, and it grew.
And then people started like becoming really good friends and thinking, well,
I'll get to see my friends and I'll get to
do something really good at Brockport. But then as people graduated,
they were starting their own camps in Maryland, in Arizona,
(10:39):
in Connecticut, actually, Alaska was our first expansion camp. So
it just became like this big camp family, you know? Now,
when anybody gets married or has a baby, like we're
all there at each other's ceremonies or big events, and
it's really grown. So when somebody new has a camp,
I just put out an email and say, hey everybody,
there's a new camp in Colorado who can come and
(11:01):
help start that camp, and then people will come.
S3 (11:04):
You know, I asked Lilly this question and I'm going
to ask you as well, why do you think that
sport is such an impactful tool for empowering kids who
are blind or low vision.
S4 (11:16):
I think a big thing is that many people tell
kids who are blind, they can't. So many kids are
told no and brought up with like the fear factor
and that second guessing them and like even microaggressions being
like you ran A5K. And so when you go to
a sports camp and you do a duathlon, or you
dive off the diving board for the first time, or
(11:38):
you stand up paddle board by yourself in the Erie Canal,
that is empowering. And the kids also do it with
their friends that are their same age. They also have
visual impairment. They're navigating using their cane independently. They're navigating
learning braille, and they're with other kids like them. That
is what brings them back. And that is why the
(12:00):
parents will bend over backwards to get them this experience.
S3 (12:04):
It sounds like belonging is a big part of the
camp and you know, the friendships that that people make.
S4 (12:11):
I have a big set of alumni, so they all
graduated like from camp, and they come back not just
to our camp, but we have for camp abilities in
New York, and they will go to the other camps
and volunteer because they feel such a belonging.
S3 (12:26):
Lily also mentioned that there are athletes from camp abilities
who have gone on to do great things, and gone
on to Paralympics. Can you sort of highlight who some
of them are and what they've gone on to achieve?
S4 (12:38):
Oh God, we're so lucky. Yes. For example, Martha Reuther
was one of the campers and she was in her
high school in Allegheny, New York. And she, you know,
she was doing okay on her high school team, but
she was visually impaired. And when she was at camp,
we were like, wow, you are really good swimmer. And
when we looked up her times against the junior girls
(12:59):
her age, she would have come in eighth in the world.
And she never heard of the Paralympics either. Had her parents.
So the next summer, Martha did not come to camp.
She was on the juniors swimming circuit, going all over
the country doing competitions. And so then the next summer
she was in Colorado Springs training for the Paralympic team,
(13:20):
and she made the team. And her first one was Rio.
And you're never going to believe she came in eighth
in the world, just like we predicted. And now she
still swims. And you know, she's she's one of our
mentors and she's just phenomenal. Just an awesome, awesome person. Oh,
the other funny thing was the first time that she
(13:40):
was in the Paralympics, she needed to finish her degree
because she had to take time off of college to
go in the Paralympics. Well, she had to find a
university that would allow her to be three weeks late
to school. So she ended up coming to Brockport because
I told all her professors like, hey, you know, she's smart.
Just let her come because she's in the Paralympics. Don't
punish her like she shouldn't have to take off a
(14:01):
whole semester because she's competing. So that was kind of funny.
And she ended up being in my class. I teach
a disability sport class, so she walks off the plane
from the Paralympics into my disability sport class and it
was like phenomenal. I couldn't have asked for a better situation,
you know?
S3 (14:17):
Yeah, I mean, I guess she'd be a living example
to the other students of what you can achieve. Right.
S4 (14:22):
Exactly. And so that that was one. And then I
have two of my athletes are now on the US
blind ice hockey team.
S3 (14:30):
Your slogan for camp abilities. Tell us what that is.
S4 (14:33):
Oh, so we have two. One is called a loss
of sight, never a loss of vision, because we want
our athletes to know that just because they can't see
doesn't mean they shouldn't have goals and dreams. And then
our other one is believe you can achieve. Because what
was happening is, you know, so many kids who are
blind people accept participation. So let's just say kids in
(14:54):
their PE class and they're swimming. Everybody's cheering for them.
If they just go to the end of the pool
and come back and I tell them, why do you
accept participation as the end goal? Achievement should be the
end goal. You should expect people to give you a
high expectations and not just go to the end of
the pool, but time you and push you to beat
(15:16):
your score. So yeah, that's one of our mottos, because
I think too many times people just let the kids
just go through the motions and they don't expect them
to achieve just because they're visually impaired. And so many
people think that just by them being there and going
through the motions is enough. I have former camper who
she wanted to do an Ironman, and she did the
(15:37):
Lake Placid Ironman, which is one of the hardest ironmans
in the world, and she was the first woman to
complete or to to finish the Lake Placid Ironman. Then
she got invited to go to Kona in Hawaii and
do the Hawaii Ironman. And not only did she do
the Hawaii Ironman, she finished it. She was the fourth
blind woman to finish the Kona Hawaii Ironman. A lot
(16:00):
of people thought that she couldn't do it.
S3 (16:02):
Absolutely. And I think this whole mentality of believing you
can achieve it doesn't just apply to sports, does it?
I mean, it applies to so many other life situations?
S4 (16:11):
Exactly, yeah. That's why we also try to embed like
independent living skills, self-determination, mobility, like teaching, making sure the
kids know how to get around independently because they shouldn't
accept that someone's always going to be there to guide
them everywhere. Teaching them that, hey, you're on a college campus,
you can go from the cafeteria to your dorm room.
(16:33):
You can go from your dorm room to the pool independently.
Let's work on that. And if they can navigate the
college campus, it's very complex and big and has some
wide spaces with not a lot of tactile feedback. They
could do anything.
S3 (16:45):
Amazing. I absolutely love that. And I agree with you,
because I think the same of what you said in
sport is true in life. You know, people applaud us
when we participate, but they don't think that we actually
want to achieve or it doesn't even come into their
mind that achievement or a personal growth is something that
we also long for.
S4 (17:06):
So our part of New York is called section five.
And when I first started camp, of course, you know,
the kids are taking what I say to heart. So
this one athlete, Luke, decides he's going to be on
his middle school cross country team and Luke runs on
the cross country meet. And the news came and did
a big article about him. They did a big story
(17:27):
about him on the news and everybody was applauding. Well,
Luke's on the news. Luke was on the news because
he's blind. And he ran and I was so mad.
I said, that's not news. That shouldn't be news. But
in our area of New York, it wasn't that common.
And I'm happy to say that when you go to
a cross country meet now, or swim meet or track
and field, you will see more and more kids with
(17:48):
visual impairments. And it's not like, oh my God, I
saw this kid. It's like, oh, I'm not surprised that
I happened to see Braden at this track meet, or
I happen to see Sophia at this cross country meet.
And so now it's just becoming more of a common thing.
And it's not uncommon to see kids with visual impairments
from our camps going and being on their sports teams.
It's hard to find guides who are fast enough to
(18:12):
run with them during the races. That is what the
challenge is now.
S3 (18:16):
Tell us a little bit about how the camp is run.
S4 (18:19):
When the athletes come. Yeah, they're put into four groups
related to age. And so there's two younger groups with
the younger kids. So they're like, you know, eight, nine, ten, 11.
And then the older kids 12, 13, 14, 15. And
so there's a team leader that's kind of like their hurrah.
Make sure everybody gets there on time, make sure everybody's
got their sunscreen and their water and their hats and everything.
(18:41):
And then what happens is there's floaters. So just in case,
maybe this child needs a two on one, maybe this
child needs to go to the bathroom and the floater
is going to run over and take the child to
the bathroom while the coaches stay there and help other people.
You know, so there's additional coaches just in case. And
then each sport has specialists. So for example Lily helped
(19:03):
with tandem biking. So we have 3 or 4 specialists
at each sport so that they can teach the coaches
how to teach the kids. So like for example, in
biking we have people that are teaching the kids the
parts of the bike. We're having people that say, you
did 16 laps on Tuesday. Let's see how many you
can do today, you know. So they're helping them with
(19:24):
their goal setting with recording their scores. And so that's
how it's run. And we have a lot of staff
paid staff that run each sport. And then we also
have equipment specialists because we have to have the equipment
put out and ready every time the athletes go to
the sport. So for example, we have big water jugs
full of water at each activity that need to be
(19:45):
continually filled up. So we have this equipment specialists. We
also have interpreters for the kids who are deaf blind.
And then we also have nurses that we pay. Yeah.
So it's it's a lot of staff. And then of
course I have me my assistant director, and then I
have my two graduate assistants that work in the administrative
part of it.
S3 (20:06):
Talk us through a day in the camp. Like how
full on is it? Because a sports camp, I imagine
it's really full on.
S4 (20:13):
Yeah. So they wake up around seven and breakfast starts
at 730. We have announcements at about 815. And then
after announcements about 845, they meet with their group. And
then they walk over to the first activities at 930.
And they do that for about an hour or hour
and 15 minutes. Then they have a little break. They
get a snack and then they have teen time. They
(20:34):
might be working on their team song. Then they go
to the next activity like 11 to like 1215. Walk
to lunch at 1230, 130 is we call it foot
on bedtime, which is when everybody rests. And then at
230 they meet for the afternoon activities. In the afternoons
we do swimming, typically goalball and then blind tennis or soccer,
(20:55):
and then we do that until about 530. Then dinner
goes from about 530 to 645 because we do announcements
and we do what we call care to share where
the kids will stand up and say something that they're
proud of that they never did before. Talk about empowering.
On our website, there's a newsletter every single day of camp.
We record what the kids say about care to share
(21:18):
what was something that Laura in the green group did
that she never did before. So you can see all
the kids accomplishments and it's just awesome. It's very powerful.
There's nighttime activities, which is fishing, stand up, paddle boarding, kayaking, canoeing, basketball, rollerblading.
We have a seven person bike. It's a circular bike
(21:41):
that seven people can ride at once.
S3 (21:44):
Wow. That's amazing. Oh, I want to come to camp.
S4 (21:47):
But we also do, like I said, showdown. And like,
we also do arts and crafts. Kids can practice for
the talent show because on Friday night, we always have
a talent show, which is always a blast. It's really fun.
And then, you know, lights out probably by 930 or
10 because we do all over again the next day.
And then we also do some research because it's very
(22:08):
unusual to have so many kids who are blind in
one spot. And so when we do a research study,
we might do interviews or focus groups, or we might
do motor skill assessment or fitness assessment. And so there
are the gaps like early in the morning or at
foot on bedtime or in the evening, where we'll have
the kids sign up to do some of the research projects.
(22:30):
For example, one, it's virtual orientation and mobility training. So
you're literally putting on virtual reality goggles and you're trying
to navigate maybe it's a bus stop or maybe it's
trying to navigate going like to the goalball court, through
the gym or whatever it is. But we're working with
these people from Rochester Institute of Technology on that study.
(22:51):
I did another study on Pre-teaching this summer. Like, what
are the kids experience with Pre-teaching and physical education and self-advocacy?
We do a lot with self-advocacy. That's a big part
of our training is to teach the kids how to
advocate for themselves.
S3 (23:06):
That does sound full on. You recently co-authored a paper
about the barriers faced by children when it comes to
accessing sport. So can you tell us about that paper
and how that came about?
S4 (23:18):
So we validated this barriers questionnaire for kids with visual
impairments because there was one for adults but there wasn't
one for kids. And so we hadn't used it in
the US yet. But my friends in Australia use the
barriers questionnaire. Now we only had 11 participants, but we
had kids from all over Australia sharing what their barriers
were to physical activity. So now we have a whole
(23:41):
outcome of what are the main barriers for kids in
Australia related to physical activity. Fast forward, we just got
a paper accepted. It's going to be in the Journal
of Visual Impairment and Blindness in September about the barriers
that kids in the US face. And so now we
can compare the outcomes. Actually there is a paragraph in
(24:02):
there comparing the outcomes of the kids in the US
related to the barriers to the kids in Australia.
S3 (24:07):
Do you think that there are some commonalities between those barriers?
S4 (24:11):
Yeah, well, some of the barriers are the fact that
they think their parents want them to be physically active.
But a lot of times, especially in rural areas, there's
not really a lot of outlets for them to be
physically active. And also transportation is a big barrier. And,
you know, they all say, yeah, their physical education teacher
wants them to be active, but they don't always know
(24:31):
what to do for them.
S3 (24:33):
I can completely see that playing out, you know, in
my generation and the future generations as well, there's not
enough inclusion in mainstream sports teams for kids with blindness
or vision impairment or kids with disabilities in general.
S4 (24:46):
There aren't a lot like, let's say you want to
play goalball or you want to run on a track team.
There aren't specific teams in most areas for kids with
visual impairment. But then if you want to be on
a mainstream team, you can. But then you have to
teach everybody how to adapt for you, and it's going
to be accepting and supportive of you. And are you
going to have transportation to the practices and to the competitions.
S3 (25:09):
One of my biggest passions is increasing awareness of the
importance of fitness and mobility for people who are blind
or low vision, because there are so many in our
community and I imagine the same is with you in
the US, it's it would be a common thing as
they grow up because they haven't had access to that sport.
They face a lot of health issues like obesity and diabetes,
(25:33):
because they're not aware of health and fitness and the
importance of moving their body or how to even do that.
And then when they actually want to start making that change,
they find that there are so many barriers and a
lot of them end up just giving up. So I
think it's really important work that you guys are doing
in the early childhood stages.
S4 (25:52):
I find that if you're blind and you don't know,
you can't read the label of soda, so you don't
know how many grams of sugar are in soda. And
I've had kids, so many kids from camp, they just
don't understand about nutrition and how much sugar is in
some things. Like I had a child, he didn't understand
that if he drank two sodas, he shouldn't have dessert
because it has sugar in it. And the other thing
(26:14):
I find is, and I don't know if you've seen this,
but a lot of times the Lions Clubs or Rotary clubs,
like some service organization, is serving a meal for our
kids and I think they feel sorry for them. And
then I'm like, you're not doing them any favors giving
them two ice creams. They already had cake for lunch.
And the kids, you know, they they're like, oh, cool,
I get two ice creams. No, that's not good. Because
(26:36):
now you are having so much sugar and this is
a sports camp. I want to teach them how to
think about their nutrition and what did they already have
to eat today? And how can you balance that out
with more fruits and vegetables? And maybe have an apple
or banana for dessert instead of ice cream or cake?
S3 (26:52):
You know, we're talking about something that, for me is
a big passion and sticking point because, you know, I've
been overweight as well. I've had experience with that. And
people do just feed you because they don't think that
you care about your appearance or they don't really. You know,
like you said, they feel sorry for you. And so
I'm really excited about the work that people like you
(27:14):
are doing in the early childhood space to improve that education.
And I hope that that will have some sort of
trickle down effect.
S4 (27:24):
Well, this is the other interesting thing. So we're creating
videos for like we just finished one on for the
gym owner. So if you own a gym, what do
you need to know to make your gym accessible for
someone who's visually impaired that's going to come to your gym?
And so we did it from a gym owner perspective,
where the physical education teacher calls and says, hey, I'm
(27:44):
going to bring my class to your gym. And I
do have an athlete in my class who's who's blind.
And then the gym owner says, well, what do I
need to do? And so the video just goes through, like,
how do you make your gym space accessible for people
who are blind and visually impaired and make it so
not seamless because it's going to really depend on the person,
but kind of at least a start to making more
(28:07):
tactile markings and making it more accessible for people who
are blind. We have two websites that I'd love everybody
to see. One is called Camp Abilities, and that's our
main website for Camp Abilities Brockport. There's links to the
other camps on there, and all of our training material
is on camp abilities. Org but then we have Camp
Abilities World, which is where we put all of our
(28:30):
international camp information.
S3 (28:32):
That's a wrap for this week's show. A big thanks
to Lauren Lieberman for being a special guest on this
week's episode.
S2 (28:39):
And of course, thank you for listening. That includes our
listeners on the Reading Radio Network. You can find the
podcast of this program, often including some extra content on Apple, Spotify, Google,
or your favorite podcast platform. Next week we're packing our bags,
stocking up on the air, sickness medication, and heading out
on the road. Well, maybe not us. Literally.
S3 (29:00):
Yes, once more we're talking all things travel. A choir
of angels tell us about their experiences in airports and
exotic locations around the world.
S2 (29:11):
Sounds exciting, but between now and then, please do get
in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of
any of the issues covered on this week's episode of
Studio One, or if you think there's something we should
be talking about. You never know. Your story and insight
may help someone else who is dealing with something similar.
S3 (29:27):
You can reach out via email at Studio One at org.
That's studio number one at Vision Australia. Or of course,
you can find us on all of the good social
media platforms like Facebook or Instagram by searching for VA
Radio Network.
S1 (29:45):
Studio one was produced in the Adelaide studios of Vision
Australia Radio. This show was made possible with the help
of the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at.
This is Studio One with Sam Rickard and Lizzie Eastham
on Vision Australia Radio.
S2 (00:24):
Hello, I'm Sam and I'm Lizzie and this is Studio One,
your weekly look at life from a low vision and
blind point of view. Here on Vision Australia Radio.
S3 (00:32):
This week we continue our look at camp abilities in
the US. I chat with Lauren Lieberman, the director, about
how this initiative began and what got her into adapted
physical education.
S2 (00:44):
As we always say at this point, please do get
in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of
any of the issues covered on this week's episode of
Studio One, or if you think there's something we should
be talking about. You never know. Your story and insight
may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.
S3 (01:00):
You can email us at studio One at Vision Australia. Org.
That's studio number one at Vision Australia. Org or of course,
you can drop us a note on the station's Facebook
page by going to facebook.com Slash VA Radio Network.
S2 (01:15):
So. Hello, Lizzie. Yeah. How are we going this fine morning?
How is the new dog settling in?
S3 (01:19):
The new dog is a little bit unsure and timid,
but I'm sure we'll get along just fine. Yep.
S2 (01:25):
So you've brought us a second part to this, uh,
wonderful set of, um, well, stories and insights, really, which
is what we kind of do. And it is so
nice to be able to to actually deliver on a
two part story.
S3 (01:40):
What could you possibly be talking about there?
S2 (01:42):
Oh, nothing in particular.
S3 (01:44):
Uh, do you need some, uh, some, you know, some.
S2 (01:49):
Uh, no, no, no. Um, I've just got something stuck
up my nose. Yeah. Um, anyway, onwards and upwards to
the interview.
S3 (01:57):
Lauren, welcome to studio one. It is so good to
have you.
S4 (02:01):
Thank you so much, Lizzie, for inviting me.
S3 (02:03):
So we spoke to Lily piccolo last week, who was
one of the coaches at camp abilities. But for anyone
that missed that particular program, can you explain to us
what camp abilities is?
S4 (02:16):
Sure. Camp abilities is a sports camp for children with
visual impairments. It's an overnight week long camp, and we
focus on after school sports, which in the US many
high schools have after school sports teams. We also focus
on Paralympic sports that our athletes will be able to
play when they get older and hopefully in the Paralympics.
(02:39):
And then we also teach them a lot of different
recreation skills socialization, self-determination, independent living skills, mobility skills. And
we have an amazing time doing it. Now we do
have camp abilities across the US and in other countries,
and some camps are a little shorter. But all the
camps focus on educational sports and skill development and training.
S3 (03:02):
So how long has camp abilities been going? Because I
can't imagine that this year was your first year.
S4 (03:07):
This was our 30th year.
S3 (03:09):
And who started this initiative and how did it actually
come about?
S4 (03:13):
That's a great question. So in 1995, I started my
job at Suny Brockport, and I realized that our kids
with visual impairments were not going to get a lot
of opportunities from their physical education teachers because they didn't
know how to teach them. So I started Camp Abilities
in 1996, and since then it has spread all across
(03:34):
the US and in other countries.
S3 (03:36):
What made you want to face these barriers or look
at these barriers and start teaching adaptive sports?
S4 (03:44):
I got my undergrad in adaptive physical education, my master's
in adaptive physical education, and then I taught at a
school for the blind called Perkins School for the Blind
in Boston. And I taught in the deaf blind program,
and I coached there. And then I got my doctorate
in adaptive physical education from Oregon State University. And so
(04:04):
my background was all in adaptive PE, and that's what
I was hired to teach at Suny Brockport. So I
was running programs on campus and all my students, I
realized they were not going to be able to teach
kids with visual impairments if I didn't do something or
start a program. So that's why I started Camp Abilities,
because this gives our students, and then all the other
(04:26):
students from other universities that come to Brockport, experience and exposure,
teaching kids with visual impairments. And so their knowledge and
their confidence in teaching kids with visual impairment is going
to spread to the other teachers that they teach and
to any programs where they go. And many of my
former students and people that participate in camps like Lily
(04:49):
leave camp going, oh my God, I got to start
one of these near me. And then they start one
where they live.
S3 (04:54):
Oh yeah, she's definitely been raving about starting a camp
abilities in New South Wales in particular, which is really cool.
I mean, she had a lot to say about her
experience at camp abilities, but I just want to bring
the focus back to you for a second. So before
you started your education and studies in adaptive physical education.
(05:16):
Had you had any lived experience with blindness or vision impairment?
S4 (05:20):
So, interestingly, not growing up. But I do have three
siblings and they all have some form of disability. It's
mild and my sister has a bilateral hearing loss, so
she's hard of hearing. And my brothers both had learning disabilities.
And I mean they still do. But we as a
family had to work on their therapy to get them
more developmentally on track, like both my brothers had to
(05:43):
repeat first grade. And so growing up, it was always like,
everybody has to meet their potential and you have to
do it as a team. Like there was no choice
whether we did their exercises or not. We did their exercises.
And so then fast forward, you know, to college. And
I got into adapted physical education more so because I
(06:04):
felt like it was more challenging than just regular general
physical education. But I also think it's more respected because
it is special education. But in the process, in my college,
we had a program for adults with visual impairment. So
I volunteered for that. And then I was actually chosen
to volunteer for a cross country ski program with adults
(06:27):
called ski for light. So I'm a senior in college,
and I volunteered in this rural program, and there are
people there from like New York City and Maryland, new Jersey,
these were all adults who were blind. And I'm teaching
cross country skiing. I teach this woman. Maybe she was 40,
had a cross country ski, and she got really good
during the course of the week. It was a week
long program and she turned to me and said, Lauren,
(06:50):
I never could have done this without you. It was
like a drug. And I was like, I'm good at something. Wow,
I need to do this. This has to be part
of my life. That was undergrad. That was like my
senior year, my last semester. So I said, all right,
I'm going to combine visual impairment with whatever I do.
But at the same time, I was also learning sign language,
and I was interested in teaching deaf kids. And so
(07:12):
after my master's program, when the job opened at Perkins
School for the blind, I interviewed for a job there.
And then I got a job in the deaf blind program.
So I literally started my career in visual impairment as
the physical education teacher in the deaf blind program, and
I coached there swimming, goalball, track and field and absolutely
(07:34):
loved it. So when I went back for my doctorate,
I said, you know, I'm just going to focus everything
on sensory impairment. And that's what led me to focus
on visual impairment when I got to Brockport in 1995.
S3 (07:46):
In terms of forming capabilities, what was the process? How
did you get it started? What sort of help did
you require?
S4 (07:52):
It's funny you should say that because it was literally
my first year at the university. And so I'm not
only navigating like, who even is in charge of the dorms,
who even is responsible for food? Like, how do I
navigate this huge university system? Where are the blind kids?
Where do I get equipment? Like, all of that was
(08:13):
so brand new, and I had to do it by
myself because I didn't have graduate students at the time,
and that was before internet or cell phones. So I
literally was in my office 12 to 14 hours every day,
not just planning my classes, but also trying to navigate
this huge system of it's not bureaucracy. It just was
(08:33):
hard to navigate because I didn't know who was in
charge or the politics of anything. I had to write grants. Luckily,
one of the grants that I wrote it was only $13,000,
but it was enough for me to think people see
value in this. People think that kids learning sports who
are blind, that's important, that's valuable. And so that won $13,000.
(08:55):
Grant turned into a summer with 27 kids a week
long camp. I owed $5,000 at the end of that summer.
And so then the next summer, I got a little
more grant money. I had another camp with more kids.
I think we had 45 or 50 kids that second year,
and I owed $5,000 at the end of that year, too.
(09:16):
So it took me a while to realize I need
to charge the parents a bit more money. You know,
because I was ending up having to fundraise from the
year before in order to make enough money to have
the camp the next year.
S3 (09:28):
So in terms of getting the coaches and people on
board to help out the volunteers for the first camp,
how did you go about that?
S4 (09:35):
That's a great question. We have a concentration in adapted
physical education at my university, and we also have a
master's program. So I recruited my own students. I recruited
students from Suny Cortland, which is another State University of
New York and then Adelphi University. I even got some
high school students. Oh, and Westchester University. So I went
(09:58):
to undergraduate school at Westchester University in Pennsylvania, and my
former professor, Monica Lepore, brought up her daughter, who at
the time she was seven when we first started the camp.
And then she would bring 4 or 5 students. And
then as we went on, monika's students that she brought,
even after they graduated, they'd still come and help me.
(10:18):
And then she would bring more students. So it was
like West Chester University, Suny Brockport, Suny Cortland, and it grew.
And then people started like becoming really good friends and thinking, well,
I'll get to see my friends and I'll get to
do something really good at Brockport. But then as people graduated,
they were starting their own camps in Maryland, in Arizona,
(10:39):
in Connecticut, actually, Alaska was our first expansion camp. So
it just became like this big camp family, you know? Now,
when anybody gets married or has a baby, like we're
all there at each other's ceremonies or big events, and
it's really grown. So when somebody new has a camp,
I just put out an email and say, hey everybody,
there's a new camp in Colorado who can come and
(11:01):
help start that camp, and then people will come.
S3 (11:04):
You know, I asked Lilly this question and I'm going
to ask you as well, why do you think that
sport is such an impactful tool for empowering kids who
are blind or low vision.
S4 (11:16):
I think a big thing is that many people tell
kids who are blind, they can't. So many kids are
told no and brought up with like the fear factor
and that second guessing them and like even microaggressions being
like you ran A5K. And so when you go to
a sports camp and you do a duathlon, or you
dive off the diving board for the first time, or
(11:38):
you stand up paddle board by yourself in the Erie Canal,
that is empowering. And the kids also do it with
their friends that are their same age. They also have
visual impairment. They're navigating using their cane independently. They're navigating
learning braille, and they're with other kids like them. That
is what brings them back. And that is why the
(12:00):
parents will bend over backwards to get them this experience.
S3 (12:04):
It sounds like belonging is a big part of the
camp and you know, the friendships that that people make.
S4 (12:11):
I have a big set of alumni, so they all
graduated like from camp, and they come back not just
to our camp, but we have for camp abilities in
New York, and they will go to the other camps
and volunteer because they feel such a belonging.
S3 (12:26):
Lily also mentioned that there are athletes from camp abilities
who have gone on to do great things, and gone
on to Paralympics. Can you sort of highlight who some
of them are and what they've gone on to achieve?
S4 (12:38):
Oh God, we're so lucky. Yes. For example, Martha Reuther
was one of the campers and she was in her
high school in Allegheny, New York. And she, you know,
she was doing okay on her high school team, but
she was visually impaired. And when she was at camp,
we were like, wow, you are really good swimmer. And
when we looked up her times against the junior girls
(12:59):
her age, she would have come in eighth in the world.
And she never heard of the Paralympics either. Had her parents.
So the next summer, Martha did not come to camp.
She was on the juniors swimming circuit, going all over
the country doing competitions. And so then the next summer
she was in Colorado Springs training for the Paralympic team,
(13:20):
and she made the team. And her first one was Rio.
And you're never going to believe she came in eighth
in the world, just like we predicted. And now she
still swims. And you know, she's she's one of our
mentors and she's just phenomenal. Just an awesome, awesome person. Oh,
the other funny thing was the first time that she
(13:40):
was in the Paralympics, she needed to finish her degree
because she had to take time off of college to
go in the Paralympics. Well, she had to find a
university that would allow her to be three weeks late
to school. So she ended up coming to Brockport because
I told all her professors like, hey, you know, she's smart.
Just let her come because she's in the Paralympics. Don't
punish her like she shouldn't have to take off a
(14:01):
whole semester because she's competing. So that was kind of funny.
And she ended up being in my class. I teach
a disability sport class, so she walks off the plane
from the Paralympics into my disability sport class and it
was like phenomenal. I couldn't have asked for a better situation,
you know?
S3 (14:17):
Yeah, I mean, I guess she'd be a living example
to the other students of what you can achieve. Right.
S4 (14:22):
Exactly. And so that that was one. And then I
have two of my athletes are now on the US
blind ice hockey team.
S3 (14:30):
Your slogan for camp abilities. Tell us what that is.
S4 (14:33):
Oh, so we have two. One is called a loss
of sight, never a loss of vision, because we want
our athletes to know that just because they can't see
doesn't mean they shouldn't have goals and dreams. And then
our other one is believe you can achieve. Because what
was happening is, you know, so many kids who are
blind people accept participation. So let's just say kids in
(14:54):
their PE class and they're swimming. Everybody's cheering for them.
If they just go to the end of the pool
and come back and I tell them, why do you
accept participation as the end goal? Achievement should be the
end goal. You should expect people to give you a
high expectations and not just go to the end of
the pool, but time you and push you to beat
(15:16):
your score. So yeah, that's one of our mottos, because
I think too many times people just let the kids
just go through the motions and they don't expect them
to achieve just because they're visually impaired. And so many
people think that just by them being there and going
through the motions is enough. I have former camper who
she wanted to do an Ironman, and she did the
(15:37):
Lake Placid Ironman, which is one of the hardest ironmans
in the world, and she was the first woman to
complete or to to finish the Lake Placid Ironman. Then
she got invited to go to Kona in Hawaii and
do the Hawaii Ironman. And not only did she do
the Hawaii Ironman, she finished it. She was the fourth
blind woman to finish the Kona Hawaii Ironman. A lot
(16:00):
of people thought that she couldn't do it.
S3 (16:02):
Absolutely. And I think this whole mentality of believing you
can achieve it doesn't just apply to sports, does it?
I mean, it applies to so many other life situations?
S4 (16:11):
Exactly, yeah. That's why we also try to embed like
independent living skills, self-determination, mobility, like teaching, making sure the
kids know how to get around independently because they shouldn't
accept that someone's always going to be there to guide
them everywhere. Teaching them that, hey, you're on a college campus,
you can go from the cafeteria to your dorm room.
(16:33):
You can go from your dorm room to the pool independently.
Let's work on that. And if they can navigate the
college campus, it's very complex and big and has some
wide spaces with not a lot of tactile feedback. They
could do anything.
S3 (16:45):
Amazing. I absolutely love that. And I agree with you,
because I think the same of what you said in
sport is true in life. You know, people applaud us
when we participate, but they don't think that we actually
want to achieve or it doesn't even come into their
mind that achievement or a personal growth is something that
we also long for.
S4 (17:06):
So our part of New York is called section five.
And when I first started camp, of course, you know,
the kids are taking what I say to heart. So
this one athlete, Luke, decides he's going to be on
his middle school cross country team and Luke runs on
the cross country meet. And the news came and did
a big article about him. They did a big story
(17:27):
about him on the news and everybody was applauding. Well,
Luke's on the news. Luke was on the news because
he's blind. And he ran and I was so mad.
I said, that's not news. That shouldn't be news. But
in our area of New York, it wasn't that common.
And I'm happy to say that when you go to
a cross country meet now, or swim meet or track
and field, you will see more and more kids with
(17:48):
visual impairments. And it's not like, oh my God, I
saw this kid. It's like, oh, I'm not surprised that
I happened to see Braden at this track meet, or
I happen to see Sophia at this cross country meet.
And so now it's just becoming more of a common thing.
And it's not uncommon to see kids with visual impairments
from our camps going and being on their sports teams.
It's hard to find guides who are fast enough to
(18:12):
run with them during the races. That is what the
challenge is now.
S3 (18:16):
Tell us a little bit about how the camp is run.
S4 (18:19):
When the athletes come. Yeah, they're put into four groups
related to age. And so there's two younger groups with
the younger kids. So they're like, you know, eight, nine, ten, 11.
And then the older kids 12, 13, 14, 15. And
so there's a team leader that's kind of like their hurrah.
Make sure everybody gets there on time, make sure everybody's
got their sunscreen and their water and their hats and everything.
(18:41):
And then what happens is there's floaters. So just in case,
maybe this child needs a two on one, maybe this
child needs to go to the bathroom and the floater
is going to run over and take the child to
the bathroom while the coaches stay there and help other people.
You know, so there's additional coaches just in case. And
then each sport has specialists. So for example Lily helped
(19:03):
with tandem biking. So we have 3 or 4 specialists
at each sport so that they can teach the coaches
how to teach the kids. So like for example, in
biking we have people that are teaching the kids the
parts of the bike. We're having people that say, you
did 16 laps on Tuesday. Let's see how many you
can do today, you know. So they're helping them with
(19:24):
their goal setting with recording their scores. And so that's
how it's run. And we have a lot of staff
paid staff that run each sport. And then we also
have equipment specialists because we have to have the equipment
put out and ready every time the athletes go to
the sport. So for example, we have big water jugs
full of water at each activity that need to be
(19:45):
continually filled up. So we have this equipment specialists. We
also have interpreters for the kids who are deaf blind.
And then we also have nurses that we pay. Yeah.
So it's it's a lot of staff. And then of
course I have me my assistant director, and then I
have my two graduate assistants that work in the administrative
part of it.
S3 (20:06):
Talk us through a day in the camp. Like how
full on is it? Because a sports camp, I imagine
it's really full on.
S4 (20:13):
Yeah. So they wake up around seven and breakfast starts
at 730. We have announcements at about 815. And then
after announcements about 845, they meet with their group. And
then they walk over to the first activities at 930.
And they do that for about an hour or hour
and 15 minutes. Then they have a little break. They
get a snack and then they have teen time. They
(20:34):
might be working on their team song. Then they go
to the next activity like 11 to like 1215. Walk
to lunch at 1230, 130 is we call it foot
on bedtime, which is when everybody rests. And then at
230 they meet for the afternoon activities. In the afternoons
we do swimming, typically goalball and then blind tennis or soccer,
(20:55):
and then we do that until about 530. Then dinner
goes from about 530 to 645 because we do announcements
and we do what we call care to share where
the kids will stand up and say something that they're
proud of that they never did before. Talk about empowering.
On our website, there's a newsletter every single day of camp.
We record what the kids say about care to share
(21:18):
what was something that Laura in the green group did
that she never did before. So you can see all
the kids accomplishments and it's just awesome. It's very powerful.
There's nighttime activities, which is fishing, stand up, paddle boarding, kayaking, canoeing, basketball, rollerblading.
We have a seven person bike. It's a circular bike
(21:41):
that seven people can ride at once.
S3 (21:44):
Wow. That's amazing. Oh, I want to come to camp.
S4 (21:47):
But we also do, like I said, showdown. And like,
we also do arts and crafts. Kids can practice for
the talent show because on Friday night, we always have
a talent show, which is always a blast. It's really fun.
And then, you know, lights out probably by 930 or
10 because we do all over again the next day.
And then we also do some research because it's very
(22:08):
unusual to have so many kids who are blind in
one spot. And so when we do a research study,
we might do interviews or focus groups, or we might
do motor skill assessment or fitness assessment. And so there
are the gaps like early in the morning or at
foot on bedtime or in the evening, where we'll have
the kids sign up to do some of the research projects.
(22:30):
For example, one, it's virtual orientation and mobility training. So
you're literally putting on virtual reality goggles and you're trying
to navigate maybe it's a bus stop or maybe it's
trying to navigate going like to the goalball court, through
the gym or whatever it is. But we're working with
these people from Rochester Institute of Technology on that study.
(22:51):
I did another study on Pre-teaching this summer. Like, what
are the kids experience with Pre-teaching and physical education and self-advocacy?
We do a lot with self-advocacy. That's a big part
of our training is to teach the kids how to
advocate for themselves.
S3 (23:06):
That does sound full on. You recently co-authored a paper
about the barriers faced by children when it comes to
accessing sport. So can you tell us about that paper
and how that came about?
S4 (23:18):
So we validated this barriers questionnaire for kids with visual
impairments because there was one for adults but there wasn't
one for kids. And so we hadn't used it in
the US yet. But my friends in Australia use the
barriers questionnaire. Now we only had 11 participants, but we
had kids from all over Australia sharing what their barriers
were to physical activity. So now we have a whole
(23:41):
outcome of what are the main barriers for kids in
Australia related to physical activity. Fast forward, we just got
a paper accepted. It's going to be in the Journal
of Visual Impairment and Blindness in September about the barriers
that kids in the US face. And so now we
can compare the outcomes. Actually there is a paragraph in
(24:02):
there comparing the outcomes of the kids in the US
related to the barriers to the kids in Australia.
S3 (24:07):
Do you think that there are some commonalities between those barriers?
S4 (24:11):
Yeah, well, some of the barriers are the fact that
they think their parents want them to be physically active.
But a lot of times, especially in rural areas, there's
not really a lot of outlets for them to be
physically active. And also transportation is a big barrier. And,
you know, they all say, yeah, their physical education teacher
wants them to be active, but they don't always know
(24:31):
what to do for them.
S3 (24:33):
I can completely see that playing out, you know, in
my generation and the future generations as well, there's not
enough inclusion in mainstream sports teams for kids with blindness
or vision impairment or kids with disabilities in general.
S4 (24:46):
There aren't a lot like, let's say you want to
play goalball or you want to run on a track team.
There aren't specific teams in most areas for kids with
visual impairment. But then if you want to be on
a mainstream team, you can. But then you have to
teach everybody how to adapt for you, and it's going
to be accepting and supportive of you. And are you
going to have transportation to the practices and to the competitions.
S3 (25:09):
One of my biggest passions is increasing awareness of the
importance of fitness and mobility for people who are blind
or low vision, because there are so many in our
community and I imagine the same is with you in
the US, it's it would be a common thing as
they grow up because they haven't had access to that sport.
They face a lot of health issues like obesity and diabetes,
(25:33):
because they're not aware of health and fitness and the
importance of moving their body or how to even do that.
And then when they actually want to start making that change,
they find that there are so many barriers and a
lot of them end up just giving up. So I
think it's really important work that you guys are doing
in the early childhood stages.
S4 (25:52):
I find that if you're blind and you don't know,
you can't read the label of soda, so you don't
know how many grams of sugar are in soda. And
I've had kids, so many kids from camp, they just
don't understand about nutrition and how much sugar is in
some things. Like I had a child, he didn't understand
that if he drank two sodas, he shouldn't have dessert
because it has sugar in it. And the other thing
(26:14):
I find is, and I don't know if you've seen this,
but a lot of times the Lions Clubs or Rotary clubs,
like some service organization, is serving a meal for our
kids and I think they feel sorry for them. And
then I'm like, you're not doing them any favors giving
them two ice creams. They already had cake for lunch.
And the kids, you know, they they're like, oh, cool,
I get two ice creams. No, that's not good. Because
(26:36):
now you are having so much sugar and this is
a sports camp. I want to teach them how to
think about their nutrition and what did they already have
to eat today? And how can you balance that out
with more fruits and vegetables? And maybe have an apple
or banana for dessert instead of ice cream or cake?
S3 (26:52):
You know, we're talking about something that, for me is
a big passion and sticking point because, you know, I've
been overweight as well. I've had experience with that. And
people do just feed you because they don't think that
you care about your appearance or they don't really. You know,
like you said, they feel sorry for you. And so
I'm really excited about the work that people like you
(27:14):
are doing in the early childhood space to improve that education.
And I hope that that will have some sort of
trickle down effect.
S4 (27:24):
Well, this is the other interesting thing. So we're creating
videos for like we just finished one on for the
gym owner. So if you own a gym, what do
you need to know to make your gym accessible for
someone who's visually impaired that's going to come to your gym?
And so we did it from a gym owner perspective,
where the physical education teacher calls and says, hey, I'm
(27:44):
going to bring my class to your gym. And I
do have an athlete in my class who's who's blind.
And then the gym owner says, well, what do I
need to do? And so the video just goes through, like,
how do you make your gym space accessible for people
who are blind and visually impaired and make it so
not seamless because it's going to really depend on the person,
but kind of at least a start to making more
(28:07):
tactile markings and making it more accessible for people who
are blind. We have two websites that I'd love everybody
to see. One is called Camp Abilities, and that's our
main website for Camp Abilities Brockport. There's links to the
other camps on there, and all of our training material
is on camp abilities. Org but then we have Camp
Abilities World, which is where we put all of our
(28:30):
international camp information.
S3 (28:32):
That's a wrap for this week's show. A big thanks
to Lauren Lieberman for being a special guest on this
week's episode.
S2 (28:39):
And of course, thank you for listening. That includes our
listeners on the Reading Radio Network. You can find the
podcast of this program, often including some extra content on Apple, Spotify, Google,
or your favorite podcast platform. Next week we're packing our bags,
stocking up on the air, sickness medication, and heading out
on the road. Well, maybe not us. Literally.
S3 (29:00):
Yes, once more we're talking all things travel. A choir
of angels tell us about their experiences in airports and
exotic locations around the world.
S2 (29:11):
Sounds exciting, but between now and then, please do get
in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of
any of the issues covered on this week's episode of
Studio One, or if you think there's something we should
be talking about. You never know. Your story and insight
may help someone else who is dealing with something similar.
S3 (29:27):
You can reach out via email at Studio One at org.
That's studio number one at Vision Australia. Or of course,
you can find us on all of the good social
media platforms like Facebook or Instagram by searching for VA
Radio Network.
S1 (29:45):
Studio one was produced in the Adelaide studios of Vision
Australia Radio. This show was made possible with the help
of the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at.
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