Hannah’s brothers are joining us for a week while their parents do a wonderful thing. They run a week long camp called Royal Family Kids Camp.

RFKC is a special camp only for abused kids. The most amazing thing to me is that the kids attend the camp FREE OF CHARGE! That’s right, foster kids finally get to do something fun that doesn’t cost their foster parents a fortune. The people putting on the camp must do all the fundraising themselves. This amounts to about $20,000 a year.

I first learned about this camp when I was a presenter at the annual training for the camp that Hannah’s previous parents put on. They had initially asked former blogger, and my friend, Nancy to come and do a presentation on RAD 101. They wanted to help the camp counselors understand some of what the kids had experienced, what behaviors they might expect to see and how to handle them. I was amazed at the openness of the counselors to learning about attachment disorder, and the number of great questions they had. They were more open to the information than many of the family members of foster and adoptive parents that I have met.

Just one of the ways that this camp differs is that there is one counselor for every two campers. I don’t know of any other camp with that counselor to camper ratio. For our kids, this is a great thing. They receive nearly one on one attention, which is something they may not receive in any other aspect of their lives.

The other thing that makes this camp different is that it’s one of the few places that our kids can go to and be around other kids with similar life experiences to theirs. This is no small feat when you think of the life experiences that our kids have had. Where else can you be and say that your dad is in prison and not have some pull away from you in fear or shock? What a feeling it must be to not be different for a change.

Many foster children don’t get to attend camp because of the cost. If you’re receiving a $500 subsidy can you afford to spend $400 of it to send a child to camp for a week? Most families can’t so going to camp is more of a luxury than it is for the “average” child.

RFKC has camps in almost every state and even some camps in other parts of the world. To search for a camp in your area, or to donate to a camp to help a child be able to attend, click here.



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