Community Support Services

Recreation activities that are appropriate and engaging for children with autism and developmental disabilities are often scarce or difficult to access because of financial limitations of families. Families often depend on the respite the CSS summer camp provides in order to maintain employment. Waiting lists for state programs to assist families are long and any available scholarships do not cover the cost of a child's specialized summer services.

Children with autism benefit from a highly structured and supervised summer day camp. However, finding an appropriate, engaging summer camp program for children is difficult and costly. Families, who often depend on the respite summer camp provides in order to maintain employment, face prohibitive out-of-pocket expenses and have limited options to secure financial assistance. Children fall behind academically and behaviorally without the consistent day activities of a school setting.

The CSS summer camp program offers children a highly structured, diverse summer camp experience that includes community based recreational activities and outings as well as therapeutic recreation like art, music, and dance therapy activities. The CSS summer camp program provides families respite in order to maintain jobs and family security. Children who participate in the CSS summer camp program receive support consistent with their school settings, which improves their progress & outlook.

CSS will provide summer camp services to over 80 children, and be able to provide services to unfunded children (those not receiving support from the state or other sources). This alleviates the financial burden for parents, and allows them to avoid the risk of losing employment/wages to accommodate the change in schedule that occurs for these children/families after the school year closes. Children will be engaged in highly structured, community based recreation activities.