Our goals for each Expeditioner are to enhance leadership skills and promote personal growth during our teen adventure travel camps. Vehicles for these goals are a variety of challenges and interpersonal interaction, an example would be our Spanish immersion camps for teens. Many summer programs offer the experience of “growth through challenge.” It is our equal emphasis on interpersonal skills that makes us quite unique.

Four nights a week during our travel adventure camps each group of teens and leaders holds evening meetings. Each meeting has two parts. During the first part, called Sharing, participants have the opportunity to reflect on the events of the day. It is often used as a time to say “thank you” for a kindness that could typically have gone unacknowledged.

The second part of each meeting involves an exercise, which provides structure and flow to the process. Exercises are chosen to enhance a predictable sequence of stages in the life of any group. As the summer progresses, kids become more comfortable speaking in the meetings. Trust among the participants increases. Listening skills are learned and practiced. Exercises become more rigorous. Kids are encouraged to identify their feelings and communicate them to the group. When the communication spreads among all members of the trip, the bonds help to broaden and deepen friendships among all Expeditioners.

In our evening meetings, we try to instill in kids the confidence to believe in themselves and their ability to effectively communicate. We don’t assume that people outside of Longacre “play by the same rules” that we do. We spend time at the end of the adventure camp season setting goals that are realistic. But they do re-enter their lives at home with a new sense of their own personal power—power that will blossom next week, next month, or next year.

Each trip has other elements that help us focus on our own personal growth.

• Trip Journal — Each expedition keeps a daily journal. The job of scribe rotates among the kids. Copies of trip journals are sent to kids and staff in the fall.
• Letter to Myself — Each kid writes a Letter to Myself toward the end of the trip. The letters are mailed to the kids in the fall.
• Benchmarks — Benchmarks are meetings that occur one-on-one or two-on-one between leaders and kids. They are progress reports, reinforcement of positive actions, and gentle encouragement away from negative behaviors. They are very meaningful to the kids and extremely useful in helping leaders shape the group.