Community Care
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Mental Emotional Social and Spiritual Health (MESSH)

FJC’s Satisfaction Insights surveys of this past summer from over 10k campers and 3.5k staff confirm that camps continue to struggle managing the overwhelming mental health challenges facing both campers and staff.  Thanks to a significant grant expansion from The Marcus Foundation, renewed funding from UJA Federation of NY, and a new grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, FJC now awards grants to 102 day and overnight camps in the Yedid Nefesh initiative, nearly one-third of FJC’s network receiving support. Through this effort, FJC provides camps funding to hire mental health professionals, trainings for their staff, and communities of practice to build networks of support for these professionals. 

More than 200 unique camp leaders and mental health professionals participated across 13 trainings online during spring 2022 leading up to camp, and 125 camp leaders and mental health professionals joined the first-ever in-person Yedid Nefesh Community of Practice gathering as part of FJC’s Leaders Assembly conference in December 2022. 

Mental Health & Wellness Virtual Internship

17 camp counselors participated in the third and fourth cohorts of this pandemic-inspired program. In partnership with BaMidbar Wilderness Therapy, young adults were certified in QPR suicide prevention training and developed resources for their peers and campers to proactively support mental health in camps. 

End of summer youth mental health summit: Insights and opportunities  

Yashar: Building Inclusive Camps with Integrity

Building on FJC’s research on accessibility at Jewish overnight camps, in late 2019 The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation awarded a multi-year $12 million grant to FJC to launch Yashar, a program that would enable FJC to provide grants to select day and overnight camps to make physical upgrades to their camps to become more accessible for campers and staff with disabilities. In addition to the capital grants, participating camps receive ongoing trainings for their staff on how to create inclusive communities and work with campers and staff who have disabilities and capacity building grants to help camps develop internal structures and teams to sustain this work.  

Last summer, 46 camps
receiving Yashar grants and
training served almost 3,000
campers with disabilities,
200 vocational education
participants, and employed
200 staff with disabilities.