We would like to welcome you and your child to SOAR! You are about to embark on a significant adventure with your child, and it is important for you to prepare ahead of time to ensure this is a successful experience for all. You are giving your child a wonderful gift by enrolling them in one of SOAR’s programs.
Upon acceptance to a SOAR course, this handbook will be mailed to you in your acceptance packet. It contains information that you will need to be ready for camp. Please take a few minutes to read through everything. It’s all important, and if you are familiar with the information you can save time and questions later on. Keep this information handy so you can refer to it later.
To download a Word Version of the SOAR 2008 Parent Handbook, click here.
To download a PDF Version of the SOAR 2008 Parent Handbook, click here.
To download a Word Version of the SOAR 2008 Weekend Parent Handbook, click here.
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Philosophy: SOAR believes all individuals identified with learning disabilities (LD) and attention deficit disorder (AD/HD) possess inherent talents and gifts. These abilities can mean incredible success in adulthood once these students negotiate the challenging obstacles of childhood, adolescence, and a traditional education system, usually unable to respond to individual learning styles.
Therefore, the SOAR model is based on two fundamental principles. First, youth with LD and AD/HD flourish when they are encouraged to focus on their strengths in an experiential setting. The second principle acknowledges that success can be generalized by encouraging our students to develop and utilize strategies, enabling them to compensate for those challenging characteristics of LD and AD/HD. To this end, SOAR staff strive to ensure success for each student across a wide range of experiences. Such success, in turn, builds essential self-esteem and self-confidence.
Based on these two foundations, SOAR participants develop problem solving skills, effective communication strategies, increased self-awareness, and social skills. Program activities include a broad base of wilderness adventure experiences that empower students to make healthy choices, learn more about themselves, overcome challenges, and establish relevance from these experiences to other aspects of their life.
SOAR's Specialty Courses are open to SOAR alumni and students with the maturity and experience level to be successful on the course. Acceptance is conditional on the approval of the course director. Most specialty courses are led by one of SOAR's year-round staff including Jonathan Jones, John Willson and Jon Terry.
SOAR’s programs are designed to allow students the opportunity to increase their independence while away from home. Independence is gained through self-motivation and life skills instruction. With this in mind, we involve our students in many decision making processes, such as setting individual goals, developing group guidelines, as well as trip and meal planning. This also comes into consideration when developing SOAR’s communication policy, detailed in our Parent Handbook.
SOAR is dedicated to serving the needs of individuals with learning disabilities (LD) and attention deficit disorder (AD/HD) and is proud to be the finest: