Hey, I work at a theraputic wilderness camp in North Carolina, and we're looking for counselors/teachers. These all full time salary positions. I've been at the camp for a little over a year so if you're interested you can reply here or send me a message and i'll let you know more. It isn't an easy job, but its fun and rewarding!

~Heather

2/22/2006 4:11:50 PM

what does it entail?

2/22/2006 4:24:31 PM

it's residential. Meaning you live in the woods with the kids, it's year round. The kids stay at camp for an average of 10 1/2 months. We go on canoe trips and backpack trips, ropes courses and build tents (more like cabins really, they cut and skin pine trees and design the tents themselves). You work 4 1/2 days a week and then get 2 1/2 days off. They have housing for when you're on time off, so you don't have to pay any rent and bills (which is great for those of us trying to pay off our state loans ). You get 3 weeks paid training when you start the job to learn different theraputic techniques as well as how to restrain kids if its ever necessary.

Really we're just trying to teach the kids how to relate to eachother, how to be normal i guess, learn the things they should have learned just while growing up but somehow didn't.

My camp is all boys 11-17 some are at camp through DJJ others are sent by their schools some by their parents...none are really bad kids, there isn't a lot of fighting at my camp (some camps are worse) the staff we have now is real laid back i like my co-workers a lot.

2/22/2006 4:45:09 PM

this sounds like a place where parents throw their problem kids

2/22/2006 5:35:26 PM

id do that, sounds like a fun job

[Edited on February 22, 2006 at 5:35 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2006 5:35:32 PM

^^ very few of the kids are sent by their parents, most are sent by the schools.

2/22/2006 6:48:46 PM

What's a "theraputic" wilderness camp?

2/22/2006 8:26:38 PM

Why do problem kids get to have all the fun?

2/22/2006 8:30:31 PM

^exactly
i wish i could have done somthing like this when i was little

2/22/2006 8:35:24 PM

This camp is either all fat kids or all psychotic kids.

2/22/2006 9:58:59 PM

if you are really interested in our organization feel free to check out the webpage, it may be able to answer your serious questions better than i can. http://www.eckerd.org/Help/therapeutic.html

(and yes i misspelled therapeutic...i really hope i don't goto hell now)

[Edited on February 22, 2006 at 10:03 PM. Reason : more direct link]

2/22/2006 10:02:00 PM

how much does it pay?

2/22/2006 10:30:13 PM

^^I wasn't asking about spelling. I've never heard of wilderness camps giving therapy for 10 months.

2/22/2006 11:03:43 PM

^^ 20k a year plus room and board benifits and a retirement plan (you have to pay for food on your Time Off but other than that its covered) so i'm paying off a credit card and my student loans. It's not too shabby a deal. Not a job you do for the money.

^ and some kids get out in as little as 6 but they have to come in really motivated to work on their issues. A lot of kids aren't ready to be introspective when they get to camp and spend the first few months figuring out that they have problems.

2/22/2006 11:13:51 PM

i might do this, but i'm a triathlete. would i have time to train? could i swim in that lake? run on trails? bike on my trainer in a room or on a road?

[Edited on February 22, 2006 at 11:34 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2006 11:34:42 PM

you prob. wouldn't be able to train as much as you'd like to, sorry to say. On your 3 days that you're off you can train and we have free membership to the YMCA in Henderson (10-15 min away from camp) otherwise the oly training time would be on mornings or evenings that you have a co-counselor you can get up early or stay up later and run on the service road. But over TO you can swim in the lake, in the summer before i started there were a couple counselors who went for swims before waking up the kids.

2/23/2006 9:28:11 AM

i wasn't being serious. was just padding. i hate kids.

2/23/2006 3:00:09 PM

i like kids as long as they dont piss me off

does this pay 60k/yr?

read further down, no thx

[Edited on February 23, 2006 at 3:04 PM. Reason : *]

2/23/2006 3:04:06 PM

they offered me this job...probably like the offer it to everyone...there is no way many people could do this

2/23/2006 6:11:12 PM

sounds like fun...if i weren't doing school, i'd be interested

2/23/2006 6:55:32 PM

if they paid less i'd do it

2/23/2006 11:30:24 PM

bttt

2/24/2006 4:47:59 PM

they aren't bad kids, but there are a lot of problem kids sent there and three springs

if i weren't in school...i'd consider it

2/24/2006 4:58:05 PM

Just a word to the wise - the staff turnover rate at eckerd camps is very high for a reason. This ain't summer camp.

More power to you if you can handle the job, just know what you're getting into first. Most folks bail within a year.

2/24/2006 6:24:56 PM

that is pretty awesome. i bet its amazing life experience to do this. i feel like a dick, but if i didnt already have a good job, i think id like to do it. gg kitten

2/24/2006 6:46:47 PM

^^ you're right. It isn't easy at all. BUt it's rewarding as hell

^thanks

2/24/2006 7:50:25 PM

how much is the pay, like after everything is taken out and can u just work summers? is there one near raleigh?

2/26/2006 12:10:07 AM

How is it helping a kid to take him out of school for an entire year?

2/26/2006 12:25:21 PM

Quote :

"How is it helping a kid to take him out of school for an entire year?"

they get schooling there.

and often, these kids are already looking at a series of suspensions or expulsion.

2/28/2006 11:49:49 AM

I had a friend that got to go to one of these camps the first time he got into trouble. The second time he got to go on some canoe trip where they canoed and camped for three weeks.

His little brother was pissed because they sent him to juvenile detention the first time he got caught breaking into a building.

2/28/2006 12:15:08 PM