Camp Akeela: a Vermont sleepaway camp built for neurodivergent campers

A traditional sleepaway camp programme for campers completing grades three to ten, with social growth built into ordinary camp life. There are no academic components and no single social-skills curriculum: staff identify the moments when a camper can use guidance and coach them through it, with goals and strategies agreed with each family. Campers choose two activities a week to specialise in during the afternoon specialty periods. The day runs from a morning bunk meeting through three activity periods, two specialty periods, an all-camp evening meeting and an evening activity, and closes with a nightly bunk check-in the camp calls Day In Review.

Tuition is all-inclusive, with two exceptions the camp names itself: baggage shipment and optional return transportation at the end of the session. One-way coach transportation from selected locations is provided to camp at the start of each session, with staff aboard, and families may also drive their child to camp. A professional service washes and returns laundry weekly, so families pack roughly seven to ten days of clothes. Parents can schedule a call with their child through a parent-only website after the first adjustment period, and are invited to camp at the end of the session for a tour and lunch.

Campers live in recently renovated cabins with private bathrooms and showers. Each cabin holds up to nine campers with four counsellors living alongside them. Bunk placement is planned during admissions and campers are usually grouped by grade level. Living arrangements are single-sex. Head counsellors — adults who oversee three to five cabins each — are the main point of contact for parents. Families send belongings ahead so that cabins are ready on arrival.

Meals are prepared on site and are kid-friendly and healthy, with natural, lower-sugar options where possible and choices offered at every meal. The day includes breakfast, lunch and dinner, an afternoon snack and a late-evening snack served with the nightly bunk check-in.

Arts and media: art, ceramics, cooking, dance, drama, music, rocketry and woodshop. Aquatics on Miller Pond: swim instruction and recreational swimming, canoeing, kayaking, sailing and stand-up paddleboarding. Land sports: archery, basketball, frisbee golf, a golf driving range, martial arts, soccer, softball and tennis. Outdoor adventure: low and high ropes courses, a climbing wall, nature and science, animal care, farm and garden, weekly day hikes and overnight camping trips. Also community service, Dungeons & Dragons, visiting craftspeople, special events, trips and weekly campfires.

The camp occupies 400 wooded acres in Strafford, Vermont, on Miller Pond, about 25 minutes from Hanover, New Hampshire. On site are the waterfront, low and high ropes courses and a climbing wall, an archery range, a golf driving range, a woodshop and ceramics studio, a farm and garden with animal care, nature and science areas and playing fields, alongside the dining hall and the renovated camper cabins. Vermont-licensed nurses live at camp and dispense all medication; a doctor, dentist and orthodontist are available nearby, the emergency response team is about five miles away and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center about 25 minutes.

Akeela campers are described by parents and teachers as bright, kind, creative and well-behaved, and most identify as neurodivergent. They enjoy being around peers but often struggle to build deeper friendships, and they do best when they know what to expect, get a preview of transitions, socialise in a structured setting with clear expectations and have a trusted adult to turn to. The camp puts them in a community that, in its own words, gets them: a 24/7 peer group where social practice happens all day, with staff who coach rather than correct. Bullying is not tolerated, many activities are co-ed, and there are no dances.