Family HEART Camp is a place for families to learn Nonviolent Communication (NVC) skills, while putting them into practice. It’s an opportunity to receive support for the sticky places, where you long to show up with each other in ways consistent with your values, even when you are exhausted and low-resourced. 

Families come to camp longing for more:

• Harmony in their family
• Skill in navigating challenges in relationships
• Strategies for staying connected as they grow and change
• Autonomy and choice as individuals
• Support in growing their skills in nonviolence
• Tools for navigating an ever more polarized world

Programing & Activities

Camp is structured around Community Sourced Programming (CSP), an adaptation of Open Space Technology (OST), which allows both staff and campers, of any age, to make offerings for the day.

Sessions led by our Program Team infuse the community with a rich experience of the values at the core of Family HEART Camp, while sharing the communication skills that help us all realize those values. Session offerings range from more structured teaching of NVC, to engaging with nature, community games, crafts, and other explorations grounded in NVC, that appeal to a wide range of ages and interests.

The great benefit of Community Sourced Programing is its flexibility to meet the needs of each camp community, recognizing that everyone — children included — are important contributors to the community.

Engaging Conflict: We believe that conflict is a natural part of our human experience. NVC offers many practices to support us in relating to conflict with integrity and care as we try to understand the tension and restore connection and trust. At camp we co-create a restorative system that will serve the camp community for the week, as we explore tools for conflict resolution for all ages

Who Comes To Camp?

Our camp families come in all shapes and sizes, and have ranged in age from from 3 months to 80 years. Families at camp may span multiple generations or be a single person. What all of our families have in common is curiosity, a willingness to learn, and a longing for more connection and harmony, in their family, their community, and in the world.

Family HEART Camp is a family residential retreat, meaning only staff and registered families participate. Sessions are not open to members of the public who have not pre-registered for camp. We start and end the week together, without visitors, allowing for the creation of a clear community container to better support us in building trust, and a sense of belonging, that campers of all ages can lean into as they learn and practice.

Location - House In The Wood

House in the Wood, owned by Northwestern Settlement, rests on a forested peninsula on lake Delavan, in South Central Wisconsin. 

Camp is one hour from both Milwaukee and Madison and approximately 1.5 hrs from Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

Lodging choices include rustic cabins (limited availability) or tent camping. Tent campers provide their own tent and camping gear. There flush toilets and warm showers throughout camp.

Fee Request
(includes tuition, lodging, meals and materials)

$700 / Indoor lodging age 13+ 
$600 / Indoor lodging ag 3-12
$550 / Tent camping age 13+ 
$450 / Tent camping age 3-12
$0.00 / Ages 2 and under 

It is important to us that camp is accessible to every family wanting to learn. If you experience the fee to be a barrier to your family's participation, please contact your camp host.