In 1989, child psychologist Dr. Robert Field and his wife Debra Field, MA founded the first Quest Camp in the San Francisco Bay Area after Dr. Field identified children from his private practice that would benefit from a structured therapeutic environment that allows children to conquer their challenges and grow in a fun and social environment.
During the first 13 years of his clinical practice, Dr. Field provided individual, family, and group therapy in a traditional office setting. To create a more naturalistic setting to work with kids, Dr. Field began spending half of a 90-minute group therapy session observing the children in the group at play while reserving the second half of the session for discussion and therapeutic input. By being able to address specific issues at the time they naturally arose, Dr. Field was able to create effective change in his child patients.
In 1989, Dr. Field – a former camp counselor himself – applied his clinical group therapy success to a camp environment with the first Quest Camp. The initial Quest Camp program averaged less than 20 campers per week. Today, the original Quest Camp location averages over 100 campers per week while maintaining the 6 to 1 camper to counselor ratio that makes Quest Camp successful.
Quest Therapeutic Camps has recently expanded with new camps in Bellevue, WA and on the San Francisco Peninsula as well as licensee camps in Bethesda, MD and Huntington Beach, CA.
