This summer’s Camp Inspire has just drawn to a close, with over 150 children attending for a total of 16 days over four weeks.
Adam Guirdham, who is part of the team who run the camps, said: “Hopefully they all experienced something that they won’t forget, getting to interact with other children and young people their age.
“They were taking part in various different physical, enrichment and nutritional activities. Hopefully the parents and carers/guardians got a little bit of respite as well because a lot of the children that come have some form of special educational needs or disability, so the respite for parents is quite important.
“On a typical day in the camp, there would be around 150 to 200 children in attendance, split into eight smaller groups.
“Each group takes part in two physical activities, one enrichment and one nutrition activity and they’d rotate around a timetable with a free school standard hot meal in the middle.
“They get to meet loads of amazing staff. We’ve had visits from Chester, Street Games and the mayor and that’s what a typical day looks like.”
On the benefits the children get from the camp, Adam said: “More social inclusion and confidence, raising their aspirations on what they want to do going forward, meeting new people and keeping physical.
“We run a variety of different projects and what we like to do is signpost them to our activities, such as pan-disability.
“Yes the camp runs just throughout the holidays, but we want to keep interacting with the families and help them all year round.
“I get a lot of messages from parents asking what else we can do or offer, so we signpost them to all the other activities we’ve got going on here.”
After the success of the camps, Adam expressed his desire to expand the camps to continue helping children in the community.
He said: “I’d love to expand our secondary age camp and get more young people involved there. I’d love to target more schools for our primary age camps and take Camp Inspire on tour during non-holiday periods with a mini camp just to showcase what we do.”
Camps for secondary school children are based in the HUB, whilst camps for primary school children are based at Holme Hall Primary School and Staveley Junior School.
For more information about attending the camps, please email: campinspire@spireitestrust.org.uk.
