Once a Camper, Now a Counselor: Finding Her Voice at Camp HOPE America

Key Takeaways:

1. Camp HOPE America provides a safe, empowering space for children affected by domestic violence, helping them heal through connection, courage, and support.
2. Former camper Questyn, now a counselor, found her voice and self-worth at Camp HOPE America  and is now committed to helping others do the same.
3. Programs like Camp HOPE America can significantly mitigate the long-term impacts of childhood trauma by surrounding kids with caring adults and encouraging resilience.

Questyn was just 10 years old when she went to Camp HOPE America for the first time. As its name implies, the completely free camp is a week of both nature and peace for kids in the midst of childhood domestic violence. It pushes kids to be brave when they may feel anything but and encourages them to find their voice when they’ve likely been silenced at home. She’d been to summer camps before, but this one had a twist.

“To me, it was just another camp, but it had more of a focus on what happened to us,” she says. 

Questyn, now 18, doesn’t talk much about that part. Not to a journalist she doesn’t know, anyway. And why should she? Trauma isn’t necessarily something kids want to brag about. But at Camp HOPE America, it felt like a relief to be among people who could relate. 

“We could talk about it with kids our age. There was a connection knowing we came from similar backgrounds.”

Questyn’s parents were in the middle of a divorce, something Questyn says was “a relief.” Children who grow up with high-conflict parents or an abusive parent often feel torn about whether or not they can still love each parent equally, especially when their parents separate. 

The hardest part of that ordeal was picking sides, she says. It’s unclear if one side was safer than the other, but as a 10-year-old, how can you be expected to choose a parent regardless? Many children of divorce and trauma blame themselves. 

“It's important to remember that children are very egocentric, meaning they think everything wrong revolves around them or they are responsible for what happened,” Atlanta-based educator and domestic violence support group leader Barbara Harvey told DomesticShelters.org in 2018. Harvey says that talking openly and honestly to kids is important because shrouding domestic violence in secrecy only hinders the healing process.

Finding Her Voice at Camp

At Camp HOPE America, kids are given “Truth Statements” every day—a piece of wisdom they can latch on to. Something unwavering that may inspire them or make them feel seen. The one that stood out to Questyn was “My voice matters.”

“That had a huge impact on me as a kid. I was in that sort of household where it feels like things are happening to you, and you don’t have any pull or sway. Even if you say ‘no,’ you can end up in a dangerous situation,” she says. “Looking back, what I experienced…it was good that I learned that. I’m seeing how my voice impacts people.”

At the 2025 Alliance for HOPE International Conference in April, Questyn got up on stage in front of 500-plus attendees—advocates, survivors, police officers, lawyers, doctors and lawmakers among them. 

And she spoke. She talked about her experience with Camp HOPE America and how it instilled in her the confidence to now become a counselor for other kids. 

She received a standing ovation. 

“It’s weird seeing how I can impact people,” she says. “I have to remind myself of that all the time—what I say does have meaning.”

How Camp HOPE America Can Help Kids in Trauma

It’s shown that kids with high ACE scores—that’s adverse childhood experiences, including domestic violence, child abuse or parental neglect—can experience lifelong negative physical and mental health effects as a result. 

As an adolescent, this can include an increased risk of dating violence, aggression, bullying others, emotional withdrawal, trouble concentrating, and lower verbal skills and reading levels. As an adult, if not addressed, ACEs can increase a survivor’s risk of depression, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and even cancer, as well as up the chances that they will be a victim of domestic abuse or become an abusive partner themselves. 

Casey Gwinn, president and co-founder of the Alliance for HOPE International, which operates Camp HOPE America, says the average ACE score of their campers is six out of 10. 

“We have a 100 percent college enrollment rate,” Gwinn told DomesticShelters.org in 2018. “This dramatically decreases the likelihood of criminal activity, violent abuse of women and a host of other long-term adverse impacts….our kids are not going to mental health facilities, jail or prison—they are going to college. And we can now prove it.”

Both medical experts and advocates agree that the best way to mitigate the effects of ACEs is to surround children who experience trauma with supportive and steadfast adults both early on and consistently throughout their lives. 

In a study of 400 extraordinarily high achievers, it was found that 75 percent of them had experienced childhood trauma. That’s not to say childhood trauma was a positive thing, but rather that, with the right support, overcoming challenges early on in life can build confident kids with successful futures. The goal of Camp HOPE America is to do just that—take kids who may feel lost or cast aside and make sure they know their futures can be anything they want them to be. 

“When you live in crisis, you often forget to celebrate the joys in life,” says Catherine Johnson, a licensed family therapist who oversees Camp HOPE America in Guilford County, North Carolina. She is also Director of the  Guilford County Family Justice Center, which has locations in Greensboro and High Point. Johnson says something “transformational and magical” happens at camp when kids get to know other kids who are going through similar situations to their own. 

“Often, kids who live in homes with domestic violence think they’re the only person on the planet who this has happened to or feel like they’re responsible for the other kids in their family,” she says.

A Place to Be Herself 

Now that Questyn is aging out of the Camp HOPE America program as an attendee, she’s still welcome back every year as a counselor. After all, “It’s a place where I can be myself,” she says. And how many people need that? (All of us.)

Whether it’s helping the younger campers climb a rock wall, navigate the high-ropes course or get on the back of a horse for the first time, she knows the effects of giving kids the power to do brave and independent things …. or, sometimes, not. 

“I see a lot of kids getting up there, 25 feet above ground on a rope ladder, and saying, no, I don’t want to do this,” says Questyn, who served as a junior counselor last summer. “They can’t say ‘no’ at home. It’s their way to gain autonomy. For other kids, they want to get up there to prove to themselves they can do it after being told at home they can’t do things. Either way, they can do it if they want to. No one can make them.”

She says her number one goal is to make sure kids feel safe around her. 

“They don’t have to hide themselves from me. Once they feel safe, they can talk, they’re silly, which is great. Feeling safe is their pathway to healing. If they don’t feel safe and grounded somewhere, their mind is going to be unfocused and reactive.”

She knows this from experience. It took her until her third year at camp to really open up and put herself out there. 

“The first year or two, there was a lot of secrecy,” she says. “But with HOPE circles”—another signature activity at camp—“it gave us time to have these deep talks. It allows kids to see themselves in others and know they’re not hindered by their past experiences.”

If Questyn sounds wise beyond her years, it’s because she is. Trauma can do that to a kid, for better or for worse. In Questyn’s case, there’s no doubt it’ll be for the better. The rising college freshman is going into data science, hoping to become a business intelligence data analyst. She wants to collect numbers and analyze them, find the patterns and use them to help predict the future. Maybe she can even help Camp HOPE America collect its data in the future, she says. 

“It’s weird seeing how I can impact people,” she says, morphing back into the teenager she is. “I recognize now that what I say does have meaning.”

To find a Camp HOPE America near you, visit allianceforhope.org/camp-hope.