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Introduction When forming our virtual burn camp, burn camp leadership generated themes for each day to formulate a strategic camp curriculum, providing building blocks over the week to create camp community and connection. Each of the themes were well defined with defining concepts. The goal of the program was to provide consistency and guidance for our staff who were located all over the country and beyond to structure our virtual programming for our campers. Methods Burn camp leadership created a theme for each of the 5 days of virtual burn camp to create fluidity across the camp. Supporting these daily themes, we defined 5 core words to further outline the overall theme for the day. Our opening day theme was Creating Community. Accompanying our theme of Creating Community, we provided counselors with the following driving concepts: acceptance, belonging, inclusion, bonded, and connection. Our theme for the second day was Growth. We provided the following driving concepts to support Growth: develop, flourish, thrive, stretch, and progressing. The third day's theme was Inspire with the following driving concepts: encourage, motivate, energize, enthuse, and lead. Dream was the theme for the fourth day with the following driving concepts: aspire, consider, visualize, imagine, and ambition. Our last day of camp our theme was Hope to inspire kids to look into the future beyond virtual burn camp. The driving concepts included: optimism, plan, promise, confidence, and wish. These themes and driving concepts with definitions were provided to our cabin counselors prior to camp and were sent out each morning. Counselors were required to complete a Google Survey at the end of each day to assess effectiveness and ability to execute the theme for the day. Results The themes and driving concepts allowed for intentionality for each day that provided fluidity for our virtual burn camp. Each daily theme built on the previous theme(s) to provide a connected community and intentional camp experience. Results of our Google Surveys showed the counselors were able to create community, facilitate growth, inspire campers, encourage campers to dream and instill hope. Conclusions Despite a challenging circumstance and an unprecedented situation facing our burn camp, our burn camp leadership team was able to create a structured and strategic framework with which to guide our virtual burn camp. This structure allowed our counselors to feel empowered to facilitate programming each day to connect our campers and move them forward despite difficult times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
