ABOUT BRIGADOON

Brigadoon is a not-for-profit organization rooted in the belief that children and youth have infinite potential when given the chance to explore, discover, challenge, innovate and create.  Our goal is to develop and manage an exceptional year-round facility for residential camps for children and youth living with a chronic illness.  Brigadoon will continually investigate the unmet needs of the pediatric and youth chronic illness community and explore how to address these needs with partnering organizations.

The first facility of its kind in Atlantic Canada, and one of only a handful of facilities in Canada that focus on experiential based learning, research, and teaching through partnerships, Brigadoon will encompass the facility capacities of all the presently existing special needs camps providing an excellent space option.  With the capacity to develop more camps, Brigadoon will be able to focus on uncovering the vast 'unmet' need of the pediatric chronic illness population in Atlantic Canada.

The benefits of camp are numerous and diverse - improved self-esteem, independence, personal growth and development, environmental appreciation and development of leadership skills. To facilitate and realize these benefits the following program elements will be developed and offered through Brigadoon.

To Experience

Camps

Arts Centre

• Puppetry
• Music appreciation / participation
• Dance / movement
• Photography / video
• Pottery, sculptures
• Painting, drawing
• Computer graphics / design
• Creative writing
• Story Telling
• Various crafts
• Leadership training
• Team Building
• Theatrical performance, acting games, improvisational acting

Aquatics Centre

• Canoeing / kayaking / sailing / boating
• Swimming, pool games
• Leadership training
• Team building

Outdoor Recreation Centre

• Hiking / out-tripping adventure-based learning
• High / low ropes course
• Leadership training
• Climbing tower
• Team building
• Environmental programming (we are developing our models for this program - if you have ideas, best practices, examples, potential partnerships - we'd love to hear from you - please email us at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it )

Garden

• Environmental programming ( we are developing our models for this program - if you have ideas, best practices, examples, potential partnerships - we'd love to hear from you - please email us at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it )
• Leadership training
• Team building

Year Round / Weekend

• Bereavement
• Seminar / lecture weekends
• Sibling weekends
• Family weekends
• Child / youth weekends
• Parent weekends
• Health care provider professional development
• School programs - primary health + environment programming

To Learn

• Joint research projects with health related organizations targeting pediatric / youth chronic illness
• Brigadoon research projects
• Investigation of best practices in outdoor education, arts, aquatics programming for pediatric / youth chronic illness community
• Incorporation of lessons learned through each camp experience into Brigadoon facilities and / or programming

To Teach

• Lectures to health care providers, teachers, families, and communities on benefits of active lifestyle regarding the pediatric / youth chronic illness populations
• Incorporating the co-operative education model in all facets of programming and operations
• Promotion / seminars regarding techniques and benefits of art therapy, music therapy, environmental programming, experiential based learning for the pediatric / youth chronic illness populations
• Promotion/awareness of needs of pediatric / youth chronic illness populations