Melissa Tobin: The Sunshine Swim Camp

Melissa Tobin from Newfoundland organizes a swim camp for athletes with intellectual disabilities

TELL US ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES AND IMPACT OF YOUR PROJECT

The Sunshine Swim Camp took place from May 10th to 12th in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. For my project I partnered with Special Olympics Newfoundland and Labrador to run a swim camp for athletes with intellectual disabilities and coaches from across the province. This camp was named in memory of my friend, Alyssa “Sunshine” Davis who passed away in December of 2015.

There were three main objectives for this swim camp:

1. Provide opportunities for youth with intellectual disabilities to be active and learn new skills
2. Provide opportunities for youth to be engaged in their community through Special Olympics
3. Teach coaches new swimming and coaching skills to help increase the quality of our Special Olympics swimming programs with an emphasis on rural communities

The swim camp was a weekend long event with sessions taking place Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoon. The athletes and coaches participated four swimming sessions, a dry land training session, a nutrition session, a goal setting session and a yoga session. The coaches had a dedicated coaching session to learn about coaching athletes with intellectual disabilities.

I believe that my project was very successful. For the past six years, I have been volunteering with Special Olympics. Through my experiences as a coach, I have learned so much about teaching athletes with intellectual disabilities. I have also gained many skills including leadership, confidence, patience, empathy, and dedication. All of these skills have helped me tremendously in preparing myself for a future career. I wanted to do my part to provide more opportunities for youth to get involved in their community and learn new skills.

Everybody who participated in the camp came home with lifelong memories and new friendships. All of the athletes learned new skills and improved tremendously over the weekend. Our coaches had the opportunity to learn in a safe inclusive environment about coaching athletes with disabilities. They learned specific swimming technique and coaching tips. The coaches learned about developing practice plans and incorporating other aspects of health and wellness into their programs. In addition, each coach went home with a binder of resources to share with their other coaches and athletes.

TELL US HOW YOU RECRUITED AND INVOLVED YOUR PEERS IN THE PROJECT

My peers played a huge role in making my vision for this project come to life. I started by recruiting three of my peers who coach in my Special Olympics swimming program. We had meetings to discuss ideas for the swim camp, plan the sessions and menu, order t-shirts and create the resource binder. I also recruited other peers to help with grocery shopping, preparing food and organizing the t-shirts and other camp materials. I reported regularly to Special Olympics Newfoundland and Labrador to update them on my progress with the swimming camp.

WHO DID YOUR PROJECT ENGAGE AND WHAT IMPACTS DID YOU AND YOUR TEAM ACHIEVE?

A total of 50 people were engaged in my project. We had 18 youth athletes from five Special Olympics Clubs across the province attend. One of our clubs drove nine hours each way to attend the swim camp. Thirteen coaches and three respites from across the province attended and eleven of these people were youth. Eight volunteers helped with the registration, meals, snacks and supplies and four of these volunteers were youth. Four volunteers from local community organizations came to give presentations about goal setting, nutrition, yoga and dry land training. Myself and three other youth planned and coordinated the Sunshine Swim Camp.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR BIGGEST SUCCESS ACHIEVED THROUGH YOUR PROJECT

My team created a safe and inclusive learning environment for all athletes and coaches. We saw a huge increase in coach knowledge and confidence throughout the weekend. Some of our coaches from rural communities were not comfortable in the water themselves and relied on videos to train their athletes. These coaches were so eager to learn and did exceptionally well throughout the weekend. Many of our youth coaches knew how to swim but were uncomfortable teaching athletes with intellectual disabilities. Our youth coaches did fantastic as well! We taught them how to break down a skill into small components. We taught them to use verbal and visual instructions to help all athletes understand. Our athletes had an incredibly successful weekend as well. We had athletes of all abilities at our swim camp and every athlete made huge strides throughout the weekend. All of the athletes improved their swimming skills, gained confidence and had fun. One of our athletes started to swim front crawl with her eyes in the water. This was a big milestone for her as she had been swimming with her head out of the water for a number of years. Another athlete learned how to do a flip turn which he had never been instructed to do before. One athlete from a rural community had never been to a Special Olympics event like this before. His family was so excited and proud to watch him interact with other athletes and learn to swim. As a coach, I was so proud to watch each, and every athlete learn something new. All of the coaches were patient and encouraging. I was asked to travel to some of our rural communities to deliver more camps for all of the athletes. I am really looking forward to continuing this project with my peers.

TELL US ABOUT THE LESSONS LEARNED THROUGH YOUR PROJECT

This swim camp was an incredible learning experience for me. I learned that there are so many people willing to help. I learned that you need to use these opportunities to build connections with the community. My project was a huge endeavor and next time, I would ask for more help from my peers. Sometimes it became stressful because there was so much to do to be prepared. I would start planning earlier to ensure that I had enough time to recruit more peers to help. Overall, I believe my project was a huge success and I am so grateful for this opportunity!