Soar Newsletter - News from the Balsam Base
Eagle View Newsletter - Fall 2007 Edition (PDF Format)
Eagle View Newsletter - Spring 2007 Edition (PDF Format)
The Eagle's View - SouthWest Semester Newsletter
Second Edition:March section 2 (PDF Format)
Second Edition: March 2007 section 1 (PDF Format)
First Edition: February 28th, 2007 (PDF Format)
SOAR’s 30th Anniversary- A Cause for Reflection and Celebration
By Jonathan Jones, Executive Director
So much has changed since those early years. Our first group of SOAR participants numbered twelve. This year we served six hundred youth in our summer program alone. The weekend programs of those early days have diversified to multi-week summer courses and semester-length programs stretching from Florida to California. The four-person volunteer crew is now a year-round professional staff of twenty-six. The “fly by the seat of our pants” administration process has been replaced by all of the policies and procedures you would expect of an American Camp Association accredited program. Instead of working out of a home office, we now have two incredible outdoor learning centers in North Carolina and Wyoming. But for all of these changes, SOAR’s cornerstone remains- the celebration of the uniqueness of youth with LD and AD/HD.
For all that has changed, so much is still the same. SOAR staff are
still committed professionals willing to live not so ordinary lives. SOAR
continues to celebrate the diverse interests of our students by creating
new courses and discovering new course sites. The Peruvian Amazon and Andes
Adventure is our latest creation. At its root, SOAR celebrates the achievements
of youth who come to us knowing much more about failure than success. To
that end, the recognition of SOAR’s 30th Anniversary is really a celebration
of the incredible talents and abilities of SOAR participants. The following
is a “short list” of those traits
and abilities that have caught my eye over the years:
Inventiveness |
Compassionate |
Resilience |
No doubt, the successes of our youth is linked to the development
of these innate
talents, gifts, and abilities. Such has been our legacy of the past
thirty years. More important
still, this will remain SOAR’s foremost priority for
the next thirty years.
To download a PDF of the full Fall 2006 SOAR newsletter, 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: