Psychosocial Effect of a Year Round Mentoring & Online Support Program for Adolescents With Physical Disabilities Attending a Residential Medical Camp

Abstract

Medical specialty camps are known to provide short-term psychosocial improvements for pediatric clients yet extinguishing effects are common after returning to home communities. Despite the growing criticism, the literature is void of attempts to improve the medical camp model nationally. With over 400 medical camps offered annually serving approximately 30,000 pediatric participants, this setting provides a potentially advantageous vehicle to counter common pediatric psychosocial health issues if improvements are made. The current study addresses this problem area by testing a year-round mentoring and online support program created as a follow-on booster to a residential medical specialty camp for adolescents with physical disabilities. Youth are assigned an adult mentor with a similar physical disability for one-year post camp and are also enrolled in a monthly online support curriculum. Research aims examine the effect of this program for adolescents that have been enrolled in the intervention compared to a comparison group yet to participate. Research approaches include a repeated measures ANOVA examining self-esteem and mattering, an egocentric social network analysis analyzed with a chi-square test, and a qualitative phenomenological approach to elicit emerging themes related to participation from both mentor and mentee perspectives. Findings suggest this is a promising psychosocial intervention with the need for future program refinement and further research.