Pediatric Home Ventilation: Support Services
In addition to clinical care, the Pediatric Home Ventilator Program offers the following:
Support groups
We work very hard to match experienced parents with families taking home a child on a ventilator for the first time. Efforts also are made to connect children of all ages with other youngsters using a similar home ventilation mechanism.
Trail’s Edge Camp
Since 1990, the University of Michigan’s Trail’s Edge Camp has given ventilator dependent youth between the ages of 3 and 18 the opportunity to have a true camp experience - to enjoy activities like fishing, hiking, horseback riding, creative arts, music, nature, boating and swimming. No matter what their physical limitations, there are no boundaries or barriers at Trail's Edge Camp. Campers are free to just be kids.
“Trail's Edge gives kids the opportunity to be independent,” says camp director and University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital retired respiratory therapist Mary Buschell. “For kids who are confined to either a bed or wheelchair, they need a place where they can feel a sense of freedom, enjoy nature, express themselves socially and escape the challenges of their everyday lives. Trail's Edge is the perfect place to show them that they can live in a world without boundaries.”
Relaxing in the tree house at Trail's
Edge Camp. Read Anna's story.
In 2004, the dreams of Trail's Edge campers were taken to new heights with the opening of the first tree house in the country designed especially for children who use
wheelchairs and ventilators. The tree house was constructed over two years by a group of nearly 50 volunteers, and named in memory of former Mott respiratory
therapist Craig Van Laanen who never let his cystic fibrosis get in the way of his having fun with kids at camp. To reach the tree house, campers are lifted 22 feet off the ground without their wheelchairs using a harness and pulley system. When they reach the tree house, a chair, similar to a ski lift, swings in behind the secured campers, allowing them to move around the entire structure. Portable ventilators the size of a laptops hook on the back of each chair, so there is nothing to hold the kids back from exploring the beautiful woods and wetlands that surround the tree house. In 2005, Trail’s Edge received an award from the Michigan Forestry and Park Association for this innovative tree house.
The no-cost, week-long camp is held each year at Camp Fowler in Mayville, Michigan, located approximately 30 miles north of Lapeer, Michigan. Trail’s Edge counselors - volunteer health professionals such as nurses, respiratory therapists, physicians, physical therapists, social workers, speech pathologists and occupational therapists –are qualified to provide the technological and medical assistance campers need. Each camper has a partner who provides primary care 24 hours a day, so parents can rest assured their children are receiving the best care and attention.
Camp dates vary from year to year. For more information, please email Mary Buschell.
