A Place to Belong: Inside the YES Summer Camp Program
Darius has returned to YES Summer Camp for four consecutive summers, where he’s found friendship, confidence, and a place to belong.
“I’d probably be home just on my phone, not talking to anyone.”
If Darius weren’t spending his summer at Youth Eastside Services, he knows exactly where he’d be.
Instead, he’s outside with friends, laughing between activities, debating the best way to protect an egg during an engineering challenge, or jamming the blues on guitar with a buddy. He’s already planning ahead for next year, his fourth summer at YES.
“It’s kind of nice to know that someone actually cares,” he says.
For Darius, that’s what keeps him coming back.
“It’s a nice place with kind people. Inclusive. You don’t feel scared to talk to anyone. Everybody’s really nice.”
For many young people, summer means sleeping in, vacations, and long days with friends. But for others, the end of the school year can also mean the loss of daily routines, supportive adults, and opportunities to connect with peers. For some, it can also bring isolation. As summer break approaches, YES clinicians often see an increase in acute behavioral health crises among young people facing the loss of the structure and support school provides.
That’s the gap YES set out to fill.
Each summer, YES offers a free, two-week camp for Lake Washington School District middle school students, bringing together 33 campers this year for eight days of activities, friendships, and support. Funded primarily through King County’s Summer Programming Grant, with additional support from the City of Kirkland, the program is designed to be much more than a traditional summer camp.
School-Based Behavioral Health Specialist Randy Neish helps a camper test an egg-drop design during one of the camp’s hands-on engineering challenges.
“It’s a summer camp with an undertone of therapy,” says Randy Neish, a School-Based
Behavioral Health Specialist who helped create the program.
The camp is staffed by mental health clinicians who weave therapeutic support into everyday moments. Rather than holding formal counseling sessions, they help campers navigate friendships, practice communication, build confidence, manage difficult emotions and work through challenges as they arise.
When a camper is struggling, Randy says, several clinicians may be ready to “seize the therapeutic moment.”
That support is embedded in activities that still look and feel like summer camp. Campers climb rocks, tie-dye shirts, compete in Minute to Win It games, explore Pike Place Market, visit the Family Fun Center and learn to navigate public transit. Along the way, they’re practicing problem-solving, emotional regulation, healthy relationships and self-advocacy in an environment designed by clinicians to help them succeed.
“Kids crave and thrive in positive environments,” Randy says. “Give them a fun environment and let them be themselves, and they’ll find success.”
Clinical Supervisor Rowan Wakley helped create the YES Summer Camp to ensure middle school students have a safe, supportive place to connect during the summer months.
That philosophy extends beyond summer camp. YES CEO Laura Hitchcock says the organization’s approach is to weave therapeutic support into everyday life, not just formal counseling sessions.
“Our job is to blend therapeutic support into everyday moments and environments — not only in counseling sessions, but also through community-based opportunities like our summer camps,” Laura says.
As clinicians who work with students throughout the school year, Randy and his colleagues noticed something many people overlook: Not every child looks forward to summer.
“Some kids are super excited for summer,” says Rowan Wakley, Clinical Supervisor for YES’s School-Based Services team and another of the camp’s founders. “But then you also have kids that kind of dread summer because maybe things at home aren’t so great, or they’re bored, or isolated, or they don’t have opportunities to go to camps.”
The team realized there was an opportunity to create something different. The idea was simple.
“We’ll just make a space for them,” Rowan says.
That space has grown steadily since the camp launched four years ago. What began with about 20 campers now serves more than 30 students each summer, many of whom return year after year.
For Darius, the impact goes far beyond having something to do.
“Going here helps me control my anger,” he says. “It teaches me boundaries. It helps me be happy more.”
He talks about making friends. About learning respect and kindness. About being outdoors instead of spending the entire summer staring at a screen.
Between activities, Darius, left, and another camper connect over a shared love of music.
“I like being with my friends,” he says. “It’s really healthy to hang out with other people instead of being on your phone all summer.”
Those connections are intentional.
One student Rowan worked with had struggled with social anxiety and felt terrified speaking to unfamiliar adults. During camp, Rowan gently encouraged her to ask another counselor for help peeling a clementine instead of relying on her.
By the following week, she was confidently ordering food on her own during a field trip — something that had once felt impossible.
“I didn’t really have that big of a part in it,” Rowan says. “Being around other supportive adults… that’s what made the difference.”
Those kinds of victories may seem small from the outside.
Inside camp, they’re worth celebrating.
Campers build creativity, confidence, and friendships while working together on an art project.
Throughout the day, campers cheer one another on during games, work together on creative projects, build friendships across different schools, and discover new strengths they didn’t know they had.
For Randy, that’s the real success story.
“We’re able to create an environment where kids can feel comfortable with each other,” he says.
As summer continues, Darius already knows what tomorrow looks like.
There will be another activity. More friends. More laughter. Maybe another guitar jam.
Asked how he feels when he wakes up on camp mornings, he doesn’t hesitate.
“I jump out of my bed,” he says. “I love camp.”
Help more young people find a place to belong
If Darius hadn’t come to camp, he says he’d probably be home on his phone, not talking to anyone. Instead, he found friendship, confidence, and a place where he feels supported.
Your gift helps more young people find friendship, confidence, and a place where they belong. By supporting YES, you’re helping young people build resilience, develop healthy relationships, and discover that someone cares.
Thanks to supporters like you, no youth is turned away because they can’t afford YES services.
Help more young people thrive. Make a gift today.