FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Will 7-year-olds and 11-year-olds interact meaningfully? Absolutely! Summer Jam is specifically designed to provide opportunity for people of all ages to enjoy getting to know each other! We value the perspectives that people of different backgrounds, ages and experiences have to share, and have carefully constructed a program that takes advantage of the richness this diversity brings. What is the advantage of attending the full 7-week session? The Summer Jam staff team believes that it takes time to build relationships of the quality we wish to develop, and that many of the skills that we will be practicing take time to integrate into our lives. While any length of time in our program will contribute to a participant’s self-awareness, leadership and interpersonal skills, our program progresses over the course of the summer, and pushes each participant to engage according to the highest level of his ability. It is rewarding for participants to observe their own growth – to meet old challenges differently as they mature, and to assist others with something that they have just learned. Your child will be assigned a staff mentor who will meet with your child every week to ensure that *he is meeting the goals he set out for himself at the beginning of Summer Jam, and to suggest ways for him to take full advantage of the resources and opportunities that Summer Jam provides. *The pronoun he is used to represent a child of any gender. What is self-direction? While participants are invited to join in all kinds of fun and interesting activities, they can always choose to do something else that interests them. The Wondertree Centre is filled with all sorts of supplies for building, drawing, sewing, painting, collaging, magazine-making, printing, music-making, puppet-making, photography, reading, internet-exploring, etc. etc. and Jericho Park and Beach are a skip and a jump away! Why self-direction? Summer Jam is founded on the belief that children naturally know what activities are of value to them. For this reason, we encourage participants to connect with their innate guidance and wisdom and to pursue the activities that interest them. If participants self-direct, what do staff members do? Staff members supervise and support all participant-directed activities, intervening only to ensure safety and to mediate conflict. (See Conflict Resolution for details.) We are committed to the process over the product, and see our primary work as facilitating the decision-making and communication that lead to healthy engagement and positive interaction between participants. What is a playshop? You’re probably familiar with the term "workshop". Well a playshop is like a workshop in that it's an interactive skill-building session. At Summer Jam, we don't think of these sessions as "work" though, since our playshops are fun, empowering, and youth-oriented – much more like "learn as you play" classes.