DECKERS • Before attending Camp Faubion last spring, 17-year-old Cierra Spence, who goes by Cici, had never used a flashlight or slept in a bunkbed or even been inside a rustic cabin in the woods before.

And she forgot to bring a coat to the inaugural camp designed for children in foster care or who have been adopted.

Cici’s oversight provided a lesson on springtime in the Rockies.

“The whole thing of snowing kind of ruined some of our fun, but we still got to do other things,” she said.

Kids Crossing, a foster care agency in Colorado Springs, is hosting the long weekend event again this year at the YMCA’s Camp Shady Brook near Deckers.

Last year’s sessions went so well that the opportunity has returned and remains the only one of its kind in the region, said Rachel Turner, therapeutic team lead for Kids Crossing.

A group of 30 campers ages 9-14 arrived last Friday and left Sunday afternoon; the second session for ages 15-18 is this coming weekend.

Campers are from Colorado Springs, Monument, Denver, Pueblo and La Junta, and live under the auspices of Kids Crossing or Brad’s House, a qualified residential treatment program in Monument and Pueblo for boys who have faced hardships.

Like other youth camps, participants are hiking, climbing, kayaking canoeing, doing archery, making tie-dye shirts, eating s’mores, playing games and singing campfire songs.

But children in foster care or who have been adopted by foster parents usually have experienced multiple traumas in their lives and as a result have emotional and behavioral problems that can make attending traditional camp difficult, Turner said.

“When kids are in foster care they don’t have a lot of the same opportunities as other kids,” she said. “It was important to us to create something where kids could feel supported and enjoy themselves.”

Children who have been exposed to trauma function developmentally at half their chronological age, Turner said, and “We meet them where they’re at and give them developmentally appropriate goals they can achieve and feel good about themselves.”

The majority of campers display sensory issues and get easily overstimulated, and some may act aggressively and need to learn appropriate responses, said therapist Aimee Davis, camp coordinator and director of development for Kids Crossing.

“A lot of stuff we deal with, these kids they would have been sent home for at a traditional camp,” she said.

Here, everyone is on equal ground.

While the long weekend includes the same types of activities and environment that typical summer camp delivers, Kids Crossing staff are trained to respond to not listening, inattention, rough movement, not focusing and running around with a Trust-Based Relational Intervention model that’s based on connecting, empowering and correcting.

“It’s rooted in helping these kids move toward having secure attachments, with the camp centered around opportunities to give and receive care,” Davis said.

Instead of children running away from a situation if they’re upset, they learn how to negotiate their desires by telling an adult they need to take a break, for example.

“It’s about using their words, not behaviors, to get their needs met,” Davis said.

A common scenario is if kids can’t handle the noise and chaos of a group activity, they’re pulled aside by a staff member and invited to take a walk or bounce on a stress ball to regulate their emotions with guidance, she said.

During rock climbing on Sunday, some children asked to play a game instead of waiting for a turn at the wall. When given permission they headed toward an ad hoc ga-ga ball competition, a variation on dodge ball.

A child on the climbing wall was asked if he was OK with staff on the ground yelling directions to him or if he preferred, they’d be quiet while he worked his way up the challenging course.

No, he was all right with it, he said, enough so that he summited the outdoor wall and rang a bell to announce his accomplishment.

“I did the hard side and made it to the top!” he shouted with excitement afterward.

The staff-to-youth ratio is high, usually one worker for every four children, with more adults who walk around to assess whether someone needs something and lend assistance.

Some of the children have lived in situations where there was not enough food to eat, so there’s plenty at Camp Faubion, which is named after the founders of Kids Crossing.

“The camp accommodates any dietary restrictions, or if youth struggle with certain types of food, and there’s enough that they can go for two or three plates,” Davis said.

The camp also gives foster parents a rest from the stress that daily life can bring, said Lynette Johnson, Cici’s foster mom.

“It’s a safe place for foster parents to send the kids to get a break and give them an opportunity to do stuff they may not normally get to do,” Johnson said.

When she returns this weekend, Cici will know the ropes literally and figuratively.

“I’ll be doubly prepared for the weather with a coat and extra stuff,” she said.

She’ll also try swinging and climbing with a rope again but isn’t sure if she’ll jump in a kayak since she doesn’t know how to swim.

Another goal is to shed her shy nature and open herself up more to hang out with peers and possibly build new friendships.

“It was actually really fun and I enjoyed doing stuff,” Cici said of last year’s camp. “I’m ready.”