Custom University Study Abroad & Faculty-Led Programs

I was in Belize with Therapy Abroad for 10 days! We did Tyke's Camp in Belize City and also did screenings at a school in Caye Caulker. This trip was amazing and I learned so much from everyone who went and from Chad and Ellen. I am a junior at East Carolina University so it was an amazing experience to learn from graduate students, professors, and Therapy Abroad staff. It was also a great opportunity for me, as an undergraduate student, to get hands on experience working with kids in the camp and doing screenings. We worked with kids a lot during the week but we also went snorkeling, zip lining, and cave tubing! Belize has so much to offer and Therapy Abroad made sure we got to experience as much as we could during our time there! I really enjoyed my time in Belize and hope to go back one day!

As an undergraduate student, this experience was an adventure to remember. If you're going to do this program, be prepared to work all day long. Although it's a lot of work, the experience gained is worth it. Also, be ready to be flexible, especially when working with the children. Despite how prepared you are before Tyke's Camp, situations will come up that you are unable to prepare beforehand. For example, the day before camp, my group was scheduled to receive five children. At 7 pm that evening, the number went up to seven and the day of camp, five kiddos showed up. The second day of camp, seven children walked through the door, and we had to create more supplies for those children. Other challenges you cannot prepare for are the different types of expressive and receptive language disorders you will encounter in the various children.
Throughout the whole program, you have to be able to work on your feet and be ready for anything. I'm so glad I did this program though. I was able to observe assessments, treatments and even participate when testing a child as an undergraduate student. I would definitely come back and do this again if I could.

We began the trip by meeting our group leader, Ellen, who stayed with us from the beginning to the (almost) end of the trip and then Chad hung out with us the rest of the trip. They always make sure to keep you updated as to what is going on, where you need to be when, safety procedures, etc. They did a very good job about organizing this trip. I felt a little uninformed about the trip as a whole before we came to Belize, but as soon as we got here we had a meeting to go over the itinerary which cleared things up a lot. There was a lot of intensive work/camp throughout the week but the fun excursions on the weekends definitely made up for all the hard work. I really enjoyed doing the work, because then the excursions felt so much more worth it. Overall, this trip and the people who run it was incredible and I would definitely do it again and recommend it to anyone in the therapy field.