Ep. 89: Summertime and the Learning is Easy

George Gershwin says summer is when "the livin’ is easy." But there is something to be said for summer as an opportunity to maintain the learning, safety and health of our nation’s children when they’re out of school. We dig into the importance of high-quality summer learning to our nation’s children in all its aspects: health, nutrition, safety, equity, workforce impact and education.

Guests:
Aaron Dworkin, CEO, National Summer Learning Association
Rachel Thornton, MD, PhD, FAAP, Vice President, Chief Health Equity Officer, Nemours Children's Health
Nancy Molello, Executive Director, Ginsburg Institute for Health Equity at Nemours Children's Health
Ashley Bernal, Patient Care Technician, Nemours Children's Health

Host/Producer: Carol Vassar

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Transcript

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Welcome to Well Beyond Medicine, the Nemours Children's Health podcast. Each week, we'll explore anything and everything related to the 80% of child health impacts that occur outside the doctor's office. I'm your host, Carol Vassar. And now that you are here let's go.

MUSIC:

Let's go, oh, oh.

Well Beyond Medicine.

Aaron Dworkin, CEO, National Summer Learning Association:

I sometimes joke, if summer school and summer camp had a baby, you end up with summer learning.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

That's Aaron Dworkin, CEO of the National Summer Learning Association with a truly unforgettable definition of summer learning, which is our focus for this episode.

It may be summer, which, according to George Gershwin, is a time when livin' is easy. But there's something to be said for summer as an opportunity for maintaining the learning, safety, and health of our nation's children when they're out of school.

In a little while, we'll hear from a single mom, a Nemours associate, about how she's making sure her son has some summer fun and stays on track for third grade by sending him to a quality summer learning program with help from her employer. Right now, though, let's dig into the importance of summer learning to our nation's children in all of its aspects: health, nutrition, safety, equity, workforce impact, and education.

Aaron Dworkin joined me to talk about all of this recently, along with pediatrician Dr. Rachel Thornton, Nemours' vice president and chief health equity officer. Dr. Thornton is a member of the board of directors of the National Summer Learning Association, or NSLA, whose mission is to ensure all students, regardless of background, income, or zip code, can access and benefit from a high-quality summer learning experience every year. So, let's start by getting a deeper understanding of the term summer learning. Here's Aaron Dworkin.

Aaron Dworkin, CEO, National Summer Learning Association:

Summer learning is a term that was coined almost 30 years ago with some original seminal research at Johns Hopkins University, tracking thousands of students over the years in this one case in Baltimore that showed that during the school year, we educate every student in America, but in the summer we stop, and some students with resources and access to programs and opportunities continue learning and thriving and growing in wonderful programs. And then there are millions of students who don't have access to that, and they fall behind, and then they show up in school in September, and they're not as well-prepared for the next school year as their peers.

So, that idea is that summer is not just a time to have fun and just a time to have a vacation, but it's a chance to learn and grow, but in different ways than you would normally during the school year.

I'll just emphasize that in the last few years, and Dr. Thornton was on a very important research panel project that looked at the importance of how to leverage the summer months, but in the last few years, even more so coming out of the pandemic, summer and summer learning opportunities have been identified as a key recovery strategy for our nation's children. And there was a huge investment in summer programming through the American Rescue Plan. And our organization works with almost 25,000 different organizations, school districts, nonprofits, government agencies like libraries, parks and rec, Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, every group you can imagine in the summer and trying to say, "Hey, we want kids to be healthy, we want them learning, and we want them having wonderful relationships that'll help them grow and mature."

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Aaron, you make a very good point, and as we came out of the pandemic, I think really people realize that summer learning has a very important place in our children's health, wellbeing, safety, social development. Talk about why this went from a niche issue pre-pandemic to really a national issue as we speak.

Aaron Dworkin, CEO, National Summer Learning Association:

Sure. Well, I sometimes joke, I care about the summer months, but I mostly would care about kids. If kids in America were out of school from January to March, we'd be focused on that time, but for a quarter of the year, we don't guarantee a lot of support services continue to kids. So if you are a young person and you're on the free and reduced lunch program during the school year and you get your meals through school and then you're done with school, you don't know where your next meal might come from. From a physical safety, sometimes we see spike in crime in the summer months. And so you want to make sure people are in safe places where they're being supervised and being positive. From a mental health, if you're having challenges, you're not in a program, you might not have an adult to turn to, to talk to who could refer you to some of the services and supports that Nemours has for their patients and whatnot. So there's a lot of opportunities that are missed in the summer.

What happened that took it from a niche to a national issue? Just quickly, I'll just share if no one likes to think about it, but I'll take us back to March 2020 when the whole world literally shut down. And initially back then, the conventional wisdom was kids might just be out of school for a few weeks, maybe a few months. At the most it was March. So people said, "Oh, from March to June."

So what happened was everyone started looking around; who has data on what happens to kids when they're out of school for three months? And that was the National Summer Learning Association. And then their conventional wisdom said, well, now every kid in America, especially, is going to have to go to a summer program to catch up on what they miss. Who knows how? What are the best practices and quality standards for setting up a good summer program? That was also the National Summer Learning Association.

So, for a while there, our phone would not stop ringing. Every education leader, policymaker, funder was calling. We were trying to help everyone we could, including the US Department of Education, who's been deeply focused on this issue, putting a spotlight on trying, and they have grown the number of programs and opportunities for kids, especially low-income kids whose families can't afford or access a good program. So those are the kids, they're the most vulnerable, those are the ones we're most focused on.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Dr. Thornton, I think Aaron has made a very good case for the connection between summer learning and health. Can you extend that case? From your perspective, why is summer learning and health so intertwined when it comes to our nation's children?

Dr. Rachel Thornton, Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer, Nemours Children’s Health:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think part of this relates to the fact that, as Aaron mentioned, at least here in the US, we have the significant portion of the year where the traditional structures and resources that really wrap around our children largely focused in our schools are disrupted, or there's not one point institution that's the main place where children are in contact for extended periods throughout the day, particularly school-aged children and youth.

So from preschool through high school is really where I want to focus us mostly for this conversation. And yet the things that children need for a healthy life remain. They need nutrition, they need safety, they need developmentally appropriate environments, and they need environments that nurture them from a social and emotional perspective as well.

So I think that what we get when we pay attention to how we create those segues into the summer months for kids is a great series of opportunities to focus on ensuring not only that we're meeting their basic needs during this timeframe but that we're really giving opportunities to pour into the full scope of their academic learning, social and emotional development, physical and mental health, and help them develop and grow in terms of the types of relational behaviors and pro-social behaviors that set them up for success and for continued health in adulthood.

So we think about all the things that help a child grow and develop in a healthy way, and those things don't change just because it got warm outside, and parents and caregivers needs for support and community resources don't change either. For many parents, if they're working outside the home, if they have other needs, those jobs aren't on a nine-month schedule like the school year, and it creates a lot of challenges.

And I think one of the things that Aaron started to emphasize is it specifically creates challenges for those families that may have resource constraints, for those children that may need additional support. So many of the children that we care for at Nemours may need specialized support in the school setting. Those kinds of supports may also be needed for them in other of settings when they're in out-of- school time. And all of those things create barriers for caregivers in terms of identifying places where their children can be safe, but not just safe from harm and well-fed, also with enriching opportunities because development doesn't stop. I mean, they're developing every day, every moment of the year.

So I think those are some of the reasons why summer just becomes this critical make-or-break time that either allows that healthy trajectory of development, growth, nutrition, and safety to continue or where it can really be disrupted. And then from a health equity standpoint, we can really see these broadening gaps between kids and families that have access to those resources in the summer months that they have to really craft and identify for themselves versus those families that either don't have the resources to invest in all the things that they might equally be interested in investing in for their children, or who just don't have everything they need in place for their child and their child's needs to be met during those summer months.

So it's the combination of summer being a time that is structurally different in terms of who takes point on caring for our children in institutional or structured settings. It's not the schools anymore. And the fact that children are in a constant state of growth and development and everything they're exposed to at every point in time can either potentiate that positive health trajectory and growth trajectory for them or can put them at risk for poor health, for suboptimal developmental outcomes, or for risks to their safety and their development.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

I'm curious, and this question's for either of you. How do learning programs, summer learning programs like that really contribute to students' social and emotional development?

Aaron Dworkin, CEO, National Summer Learning Association:

Sure. I'll jump in with one piece here that I think when you boil down what summer learning is and what it's about, and why we even talk about it, it really boils down to three things. I think, one, it's an equity issue, educational equity, as we've talked about, we said a lot of kids have great opportunities to learn and grow and many don't. And so, how do we make that more fair? It's also about creating new opportunities. I think Dr. Thornton was mentioning there are dozens, and I know Dr. Thornton has been involved in supporting many hospitals and medical schools that run summer programs to teach teenagers how to be doctors and get career exposure. That's something you couldn't do during the school year, but you get a chance to do it in practice and follow doctors, shadow them, do research, and work in community clinics and whatnot.

So there's a lot of great learning, and that's different, right? New and different learning opportunities. But the real thing to answer your question is around a sense of community and these programs, and we give out national awards every year of three or four a year, and it's very competitive. Hundreds of programs apply each year, and only three or four win. And whenever we identify a winner, the thing that they have in common, more than whatever their content is, is that they have a great ability to build a sense of caring community in their group.

And all their kids feel known, heard, and seen, and all the adults know every kid by name. They're all committed to one another, and they all want to show up for each other. And they might not have the fanciest facilities, and they might not have all the bells and whistles other programs have, but they love each other, and they want to come back and work in the program, and they can't wait to move up in the program and be a mentor. And everyone has this kind of like we're all in this together, it takes a village. These programs are villages, and that creates a web of support, and I think it affects people's health.

Dr. Rachel Thornton, Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer, Nemours Children’s Health:

And just to add on to that, Carol, I think it's also really important to understand that learning takes many forms for children. They're learning all the time, and for youth, and some of that is academic learning, some of that is relational learning, some of that has to do with being in different types of spaces where you can explore new frontiers, whether that's creative pursuits that you may be passionate about, whether that's being in a community with children and youth from a shared background, that you may be a little more isolated in your school environment. And there may be opportunities to rally together or to be part of programs that really tap into a specific part of a child's identity.

That can be everything from being with kids who have a shared physical or health challenge and feeling that sense of belonging and community because of that. It can be a sense of cultural heritage, whether you share that heritage or just interested in learning about it and having a learning environment that maybe focuses on academic skills, but then in addition to that, creates a sense of pride or shared understanding or enrichment around culture or identity or creativity or other types of passions.

And then I think also these can be experiences where children learn, and youth learn something that they're not normally exposed to. They may be in a community with kids who really come from very different backgrounds, and the only thing they share in common is a love of engineering, for example.

And when Aaron talks about quality, I think a part of that quality is the work that goes into an environment that is going to nurture the social development of all those kids who may be coming to the experience with different experiences, with different comfort levels or familiarity. And then I just want to lift up specifically for youth, because Aaron talked about this in terms of career trajectory type programs. There's a lot of learning in middle and later adolescence around what it takes to successfully transition into adulthood.

And whether it's college-bound or it's workforce bound, we know then there's good evidence out there around what summer employment for youth can do both from a community violence perspective and a risk perspective for those kids and from a skill development perspective because those summer employment opportunities, whether that's working in a camp and just building the skill of how do you responsibly show up to work on time, enforce the rules for the parents and the kids and boundaries in the environment, or whether that is in a particular domain of professional interest.

Those are learning experiences, and they really set kids up and youth up to successfully transition into the workforce, which we know is another critical aspect of maintaining a healthy trajectory in adulthood, having that economic mobility, having access to jobs and training, and understanding what it takes to successfully navigate that transition from student to career and professional growth.

And I mean, I was just with Aaron at a great event on Monday night just to specifically call out the work that NSLA does to create access and equity in those employment type opportunities. There are many times where those are unfunded, and so youth have to volunteer to get that kind of professional experience. And for some youth, that means no food on the table, no roof over my head, no transportation.

And NSLA is also really lifting up the importance of equity in terms of funding those types of experiences for youth transitioning into the professional world, whether that's in high school or college, finding ways to fund those programs so that youth can actually get the experience, have the learning opportunities, and still be able to meet those basic needs that are a part of health. And that's the same thing that we think about at every stage of development. The nutrition and the safety are not enough, but they are essential prerequisites for that summer learning and growth to support health.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

It sounds like there is a two-pronged workforce imperative for summer learning. A, parents having a quality place for their children to go no matter what their age is, and I do want to talk about quality in a moment. And B, developing workforce opportunities and learning responsibilities, especially in the pre-adolescent and adolescent age group and maybe even a little bit older. Let's talk about quality. How can parents know and recognize a quality program? And what do you consider a quality summer learning program, Aaron?

Aaron Dworkin, CEO, National Summer Learning Association:

Well, there are a lot of ways. There's a lot of research on what makes a quality program. First of all, they could go on our website and find the award-winning programs. And those have been very, very well vetted. Again, I've talked about are students seen and known and heard? Are there the basic safety measures in place that you would want to know? Are people certified? Do you have certified teachers? There are ways to look for that.

But what we're also looking for is, as students get older, kind of what they call student voice and choice, do students have a say in their program? Do they get to choose what they want to be in? Have they been asked what activities are being offered? Do they have content that's research based, not people just making up activities? There's a lot of great curriculum out there that people that have been vetted, that professors and researchers have looked at that show that it gets results. Do they have what they need to learn?

And by the way, it's so funny, we have to still have debates in this country about the importance of giving kids food. I mean, we give kids desks, we give them laptops. If they're hungry, they can't learn. Why wouldn't we give them a meal? It's insane. But we don't do that enough. And actually, during COVID, they just did. There was funding for kids. If you needed one, they just did it.

So quality... Again, are the staff trained? Are the staff getting a lot of training? And we do a lot of training in our organization to get people ready. We do a summer planning boot camp in March. Thousands of people are coming. So people are looking. And I just want to say, a step back, we're trying to help people not reinvent the wheel so much. You wouldn't believe how many... I always joke sometimes, summer programs specifically is like America's second-best idea.

Ken Burns, a documentary filmmaker, he once made a movie. He said the National Parks was America's best idea. So if that's true, then I'll say this is the second. Because every time a traumatic event happens to kids, if you were a kid who was a refugee from Afghanistan and came to America, you know what the first thing they do is they send you to a summer program to meet some other kids. Like Dr. Thornton was saying, people who've been through maybe a similar traumatic event, but to help you get integrated into society in America, and they want to give you support and all these things.

So there's so many different programs. And really, just to say one other word, one of the reasons it's worth investing in, it's almost the most high ROI. It has a great return on investment these summer programs, and you have to be age-appropriate. And I think Dr. Thornton was talking about that.

So what a first-grader needs is different than a middle schooler, which is different than a high school. And when we talk about high school students, we're talking about summer jobs and summer youth employment and college awareness and career exposure. But just by definition, the summer is a life transition point, right? It could be the summer between middle school and high school. It could be the summer between high school and college or elementary to middle.

And so that's a very vulnerable time, but it's also a time we believe when people are most open and they're ready. If you want to talk to a kid about finishing high school, don't talk to them in 10th grade. Talk to them in eighth grade before they're about to start high school, and they'll be listening a lot more. And I just think when we talk about what's a quality program, the people who are running programs, they know their audience, they know they're running culturally relevant curriculum, they're talking about topics that are meaningful to their community, and they're also taking advantage of what the resources are in their community.

New York City has a million museums. That's great. If you live in a rural area, you might have colleges there and there might be lakes in nature. And we should talk about the health benefits of nature, which I know Dr. Thornton knows better than me, but everything I read, the summer might be the best chance to get kids exposed to nature, especially kids urban who grew up in urban areas who might not get that exposure. And so there are a lot of health benefits there. So there's a lot that goes into quality from a curriculum standpoint, from a training standpoint, and from a safety standpoint.

Dr. Rachel Thornton, Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer, Nemours Children’s Health:

And I would just, as a pediatrician, Carol, just put a fine point on Aaron's comments about the appropriateness of the setting and the activities to the developmental age and skills of the child. I do think there's something to be said for summer experiences that are really thoughtful about grouping kids age-wise and developmentally appropriate grouping with other kids who are at a similar developmental level and age level if there's learning involved, ensuring that the learning activities really fit with the grade level or the learning level of kids.

And there are ways to modify an activity and have the kids group so that there can be an older group and younger groups with different academic levels. But those kind of things really relate to that whole developmentally appropriateness aspect of camps and then making sure that there's good protocols in place if your child... I have a daughter who has really severe allergies to some foods; knowing that camps have those basic safety protocols in place and the staff and the awareness to be able to deal with any specific needs that kids may come to summer learning experiences with, the same way that we would want to know that those kinds of needs can be met for children during the school year.

And so think about your children, your child, when you're thinking about what's the right fit for them. I also think it's really important to think about ways that summer can be a time to lean into some of their other interests and passions that maybe they don't get as much time for during the school year or to really try something new that they don't try during the school year. Just keeping in mind all of those things around the appropriateness and the qualifications of the adults who are leading the programs.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Dr. Rachel Thornton is Nemours' vice president and chief health equity officer and a member of the board of directors for the National Summer Learning Association. She was joined in conversation by Aaron Dworkin, NSLA CEO. Learn more about NSLA at summerlearning.org and about quality summer learning experiences at discoversummer.org. We'll also put those links in the show notes for this episode.

Ashley Bernal is a busy woman. A single mom, Ashley is studying to become a nurse while working part-time at Nemours Children's Hospital, Orlando, as a patient care technician and serving as a US Navy reservist. As you can imagine, money is tight for the Bernal family, and sending her 8-year-old son Lorenzo to a quality summer learning program for six weeks at a price tag of nearly $2,000, well, it might not have happened in full without help from the Summer Experience grant program through the Ginsburg Institute for Health Equity at Nemours.

Nancy Molello is executive director of the Ginsburg Institute. She and Ashley sat down with me to talk about this program and what it means to associates like Ashley to their children and how it's becoming a model of workforce development and support for other employers. Here's Nancy Molello.

Nancy Molello, Executive Director, Ginsburg Institute, Nemours Children’s Health:

So the Ginsburg Institute, our mission is really to ensure that every child has an opportunity to live their healthiest life. And there are many social factors that go into being a healthy child. And as such, one of our key strategies to really understand is that if we're in the community talking about health equity, we need to have health equity within our own walls. Health equity starts at home, and therefore we have programs for our own associates that help to have their children have an opportunity to live their healthiest life.

And it's really expensive for our associates to have their children go to summer camp. One mom had told me that one month of summer camp is almost equal to her one month of rent. And choosing between what do I give up in order for my child to go to summer camp and planning for that all year is important. So we established this program last year, 2023, and we had a pilot, very small number of associates applied, and this year we rolled it out broadly, and we have 29 associates applied for grants. All were awarded. 43 children are going to summer camp this summer that may not have had an opportunity to do that, and 77% of the folks that have applied are from single parent households. So we're really proud of this program. I think it talks a lot about Nemours' commitment to health equity within our own walls.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

So, Ashley, you are a mom. You have two children, a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old. Your 8-year-old is Lorenzo. Now, 10 months out of the year, he's in school, so you go to work, he goes to school, he's all taken care of. Summer, what kind of issue does it pose an issue for you, and what have you done to help him continue on with his physical activity, his mental stimulation, and his care during the six weeks of summer?

Ashley Bernal, Patient Care Technician, Nemours Children’s Health:

Yes, thank you. Childcare is sometimes not consistent during the summer. So, since Lorenzo's been in kindergarten, I've been putting him in the YMCA summer camp program. So this year, we did the same thing. We wanted to sign him up for the YMCA summer camp, which is a week-by-week summer camp. And funding can be an issue because it is expensive, even with the scholarship. I have a scholarship right now because I am a nursing student. I can't work full-time the way I'd like to, but even with the scholarship, it can be almost $2,000 for the whole summer.

So for this summer, we applied for the grant, and that's how we were able to pay for it. And it does a lot for his physical activity. Every day he's outside playing with friends, keeps him away from the screens, which is a big deal during the summer because if he's at home and I'm working on doing schoolwork, it's hard to just focus all my attention on him.

He's playing with friends. He always has a story to share about some sort of science experiment they did. They plant vegetables and fruits, they learn how to cook, and they do a lot. They go on field trips. So there's a lot for his mental stimulation. He's always in a good mood when he comes home.

I would say, in general, I think it is beneficial for our family because now I have a son who's coming home, and he's so fulfilled after his day that it's like an easy process for the rest of the day, and he's already got his fitness in for the day, or no, so those endorphins are released. I am a big believer in that. I feel like when my kids are out here playing outside and having fun, getting all that energy up off them, but exercising, I feel like that helps them with their mood.

So he's not in a bad mood. I feel like he's just here, happy kid playing with his baby brother when he comes home, helping out around the house. I feel like it not only helps him, but it helps our family too. And him getting up and going to summer camp, I feel like it helps with the structure in his life. So when school comes back around, he's not so used to sleeping in until 10:00 or 11:00 every day. He wakes up before we even have to get ready for summer camp because he's just so used to being up early. But we're not instilling those habits of like, "Okay, you could sleep in until 10 o'clock today and you don't have any responsibilities." No, it keeps going when school comes back around.

So that also makes our lives a lot easier as parents, and it keeps them off of the video games all day, which I think is also a big deal when it comes to their mood and how they behave as children.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

I was going to ask you, Ashley, but you must have read my mind. I wanted to see how this will impact Lorenzo's school year upcoming, but it sounds like keeping him on his schedule has been a real boon for you.

Ashley Bernal, Patient Care Technician, Nemours Children’s Health:

Yes. I feel like it's not going to be such a shock when it's time to go back to school because also, like I said, they have times of the day allocated towards learning, so he's still getting some learning time in during the day at summer camp, so when school comes around, he's not going to have that... You guys mentioned, what is it, summer slide when they regress, when they get back. Yes. He's not going to really have that because he's already been working a little bit here and there all summer. And then having that schedule in place, I feel like it's very beneficial. He's been doing this since kindergarten and going to summer camp, and I never have an issue with him going back to school. He doesn't regress or anything. And I do think that the summer camp experience, in general, helps with that.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Ashley, I'm curious, if you didn't have this opportunity to apply for and get this grant, what would Lorenzo be doing this summer? Would he still be going to camp, and would you be struggling financially? Talk a little bit about that.

Ashley Bernal, Patient Care Technician, Nemours Children’s Health:

Yes, Lorenzo would've still been going to summer camp to help offset the costs because I didn't know I was going to have the privilege of having this grant. So we had already arranged for him to go with a family member for a month of the summer. So if we didn't have this, it probably would've been extended instead of him coming back home. Once I found out about this grant, we were able to just say, okay, well, he can actually come back and do summer camp for the majority of the summer. If not, we would've found a way to pay, but it would've been a struggle. $2,000 is a lot of money, but I mean, when you have a schedule like ours, work, school, Navy obligations, you have no other choice. Some people don't really have the choice to keep their kids at home all summer.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Nancy, is this something we commonly see amongst our associates and in the general public at large?

Nancy Molello, Executive Director, Ginsburg Institute, Nemours Children’s Health:

Yeah, summertime experiences are not evenly distributed. Many children lack the opportunity to go to summer camp, and not only to go to summer camp, but to go to high quality summer camp. So nationally, it is a problem, and I'm really proud of the fact that Nemours has stepped in and said, we care about our associates, we care about our employees, and we see the value in summer camp. There are health implications, and there's academic slide. Everybody talks about summer slide and that our children come back to school in September, and they've regressed in their academic achievement.

So summer camp is really important, and a lot of folks just don't have the resources for high-quality camp. And I can say for myself, and I've mentioned this previously, is that I came from a lower economic, social background, and I never had an opportunity to go to summer camp. I was either left at home with an older sibling or left at home myself, and I had a single mom who was working two jobs doing the absolute best she could do, and I missed out on a lot of experiences that when I would go back to school.

Like Ashley talks about, in camp, there are cooking classes or they'll go on a field trips. I didn't have those opportunities. So this is really important for me personally, but also for our workforce. I'd love to see other organizations, other hospitals, other corporations take this kind of investment in their employees and offer this kind of benefit to them.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Ashley, did you have this kind of opportunity when you were growing up?

Ashley Bernal, Patient Care Technician, Nemours Children’s Health:

So I also come from a lower socioeconomic class, but where I came from in Alexandria, Virginia, right outside of Washington, DC, the public school systems, initially when I was younger, they offered free summer camp programs. Now, as I got older, it wasn't free anymore, but when I was younger, back in the '90s and the early 2000s, it was still free for us.

So that's how my mom was able to... she was also a single mom, was able to send us to summer camp, but I would not consider it high quality summer camp, like what my son is experiencing here in Orlando. What he's doing here is nothing compared to... I feel like over there, it was just like we go to a rec center, and we just kind of play in the gym all... Which is still great. I feel like it's better than sitting at home and watching TV all day, but it's not like here where my son is gardening and they're going on field trips, there's swim classes. I mean, it's very enriching what he's experiencing here at the summer camp. But these kinds of summer camps aren't free. Usually, they cost a lot of money, but I didn't experience nothing like that growing up as a child.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

I've heard you both utter the word quality. Ashley first and then Nancy, I would love for you to explain to me how you've identified quality in Lorenzo's summer camp experience, and then maybe Nancy, you can talk about how other parents can find it in the summer learning experience.

Ashley Bernal, Patient Care Technician, Nemours Children’s Health:

When it comes to quality, I feel like it's more than just having kids go somewhere and kind of just play amongst each other the whole time. I feel like here they have certain times of the day allocated for activities like science, for example, they'll do science experiments every day at a certain time. Every week there's a theme. So last week was Michelin Star week, so a lot of the programs were focused on the culinary arts. So last week, he came home with butter, and he was like, "Oh, at science today, mommy, we learned how to make butter from scratch." And then he brought it in a Ziploc bag.

And then, on Wednesdays, they try to do in-home field trips or offsite field trips. And their onsite field trip was they brought DV Donuts, I think it's called DV Donuts. It's like a food truck here in Orlando that sells really good donuts. And they brought the donut truck to the school. They taught the kids how to make lemonade, and they showed the process on how to make donuts. And then after that, the kids were able to purchase their donuts and their lemonade.

This week is planetarium week. That, to me, is very high quality. You're learning more than just, okay, I'm going to just go hang out with my friends and do whatever all day, no structure. Here, they're still going over stuff for school coming up in the fall. He's with this third grade group, he's going to third grade. They go swimming every day. And if your kids don't know how to swim, they'll offer the opportunity during the swimming time to teach them how to swim. So that, to me, is just very high quality. It keeps their mind going. It's very enriching.

Nancy Molello, Executive Director, Ginsburg Institute, Nemours Children’s Health:

First of all, Ashley, it's so nice to hear that your son is going to a camp that he's enjoying and he's learning from. And I think what Ashley brings up is a few other points is you want your child to, every day, come home learning something new and to have experiences. Experiential learning is critical. You want them to have experiences in gardening, in cooking, in math and science, in STEM. You don't have time during the summer if you're a busy parent.

So to me, a high-quality summer experience is one that gives your child those opportunities to learn something new, to experience something new, and to really broaden their own horizons so that someday maybe your son, Ashley, might say, "Oh, you know, I really want to be a cook. And it sort of started when I was eight years old going to the YNCA camp." Those are the things that I like to see in high quality camps.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Nancy, as you look at the summer experience program, it's now in its second year, how do you wish to expand it moving forward? And do you see this as a model, not just for other healthcare systems, but other businesses and other employers?

Nancy Molello, Executive Director, Ginsburg Institute, Nemours Children’s Health:

Absolutely. I think that what we have shown here is that there is a need and that employees want to participate in this type of grant program. And again, there's an income threshold in order to apply to the grant so that we ensure that folks who really need this type of financial support are the folks that are getting it. And yes, I agree, Carol. I would love to see this in corporations across the US, not just healthcare, but that for folks to see how value-added this is.

I'm sure Ashley would say her expectation of Nemours and working at Nemours has really improved since having this program. Same thing with associates having to call out. If your child is in a summer camp that's a great summer camp that they want to go to, you don't have to call out because your daycare provider canceled or your mother, who was supposed to watch your child, didn't show up or was unavailable. So I think there's a business case to be said for the corporations that a program like this is really value added for them to put on.

The other thing I'd like to add is that some of the other associates that have applied for the program is that they chose camps that they couldn't afford, like older kids, the 12, 13, 14-year-olds who wanted to go to a robotics summer camp, but the parent could not afford something like that. It was really fulfilling to hear about when a mom said, "I really wanted my kids to go to this drama camp, but I couldn't have afforded it." Or, "This robotics camp for my 12-year-old who really didn't even want to go to camp, but now that I can send him here, is really, is thrilled to be attending."

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Nancy Molello is executive director of the Ginsburg Institute for Health Equity at Nemours Children's Health. Ashley Bernal is a patient care technician at Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando.

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Well Beyond Medicine.

Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:

Thanks to Nancy Molello and Ashley Bernal, along with Aaron Dworkin and Dr. Rachel Thornton for taking time to discuss summer learning. And thanks to you for listening.

Summer learning has advanced significantly over the decades. What was your summer learning experience or maybe that of your children? For me, it was a Girl Scout camp, Camp Merriwood, where I learned to swim, sing in Hebrew, and meet kids from backgrounds well beyond the borders of my small hometown. What about you? Share with us by leaving a voicemail at nemourswellbeyond.org, that's nemourswellbeyond.org. There, you'll also find all of our previous podcast episodes and have the chance to review the podcast and subscribe.

Our production team today includes Cheryl Munn, Susan Masucci, Lauren Teta, and Che Parker, to whom we bid farewell as he departs for a new career adventure. Che, we wish you the very, very best. You will be missed. I'm Carol Vassar. Until next time, remember, we can change children's health for good Well Beyond Medicine.

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Let's go, oh, oh.

Well Beyond Medicine.