For more than three decades, a University of Providence educator has been running Camp Sky Child, a summer camp at Camp Rotary in the Little Belt Mountains designed specifically for children whose parents are incarcerated. The program, now in its 30-plus year of operation, gives kids from across Montana a week away from the stress and stigma that often defines life when a parent is in prison.
Camp Rotary, tucked into the Little Belts northeast of Helena, provides the setting for a week that campers describe as transformative. The program is built on the understanding that children of incarcerated parents face elevated risks for academic failure, mental health struggles, and involvement in the justice system themselves — and that early, consistent intervention can change those trajectories.
The University of Providence connection gives the camp an institutional anchor that has helped sustain it across administrations and funding cycles. For Helena families affected by incarceration, the camp is one of the few programs in Montana that addresses the collateral impact on children directly. Enrollment information for future sessions was not immediately available.