Building a Foundation for Success at Home and at School!

Outdoor Curriculum

The Big Sky Summer Adventures curriculum combines outdoor adventure, group building skills and activities that promote self-esteem. These foundational experiences elevate the students potential for success at home and at school. The program teaches the high adventure skills of backpacking, rafting, flat-water kayaking, rock-climbing, and mountain biking. Students live outdoors during the program and return to our rural Montana BaseCamp between expeditions to live in Native American tipis.

Students are busy between expeditions, preparing for their next expedition, talking with their families, engaging in recreational activities and participating in projects around the ranch and community. Students learn the values of giving back through community service, and raise awareness about themselves and their choices through these adventures.

Each offering teaches a no-trace environmental ethic and we participate in service work.  Parents are invited to participate in our successful and rustic weeklong Parent Trips alongside their teen and in our program-end Family Conference. We offer Pre-Summer and Post-Summer Sessions for students who are not fulfilling their potential at school and would benefit from a jumpstart and/or follow up with positive, life-enhancing experiences in our outdoor settings.

Team Building & Counseling

Explorations integrates individual counseling and group building skills with a challenging outdoor curriculum into the daily life of the Big Sky Summer Adventures. Skilled outdoor professionals guide our students through the summers challenges in small groups (under 10 students). Our adventures include therapists to provide individual and group counseling.

Students learn appropriate communication skills, develop healthy peer relations, and become responsible and accountable for their own actions. They are encouraged to practice self-reliance, and to build healthy interdependent relationships within the group by engaging in meaningful teamwork. These skills provide a launching pad for successful future endeavors for your teen as they re-enter school or move onto lifes next challenge.

Field Staff and Therapists

Each group of students is accompanied throughout the summer by a team of three skilled professionals, working in tandem with a therapist. Big Sky Summer Adventures outdoor field instructors are experienced, versatile and able to engage our students and teach them critical back-country skills. Our instructors have experience working with at-risk youth, are first aid certified and mentor our students side- by-side through consistent and predictable boundaries and consequences.

Safety is paramount for our instructors: Each adult mentor recognizes the importance of physical and emotional safety of all our students. Our therapist lives part-time in the field with students during expeditions and serves as the liaison between professionals involved with our students, their parents and our insightful field staff.

Communication

We prioritize regular contact with families. Students phone home at scheduled intervals throughout the summer to talk about their achievements and discuss personal insights. Throughout the summer, our therapists maintain close communication with parents and referring professionals, and provide regular updates about the students progressboth physical successes and emotional growth.

Assessment

Therapists interact with students throughout the summer, using therapeutic exchanges and written, guided assignments to update parents, instructors and referring professionals. Students physical well-being, social interaction, emotional growth, communication, peer interaction, and health are well observed and documented by the therapist and instructors, noting key events. At the programs end, we provide a written report, complete with student needs and recommendations for continued success.

Family Conference

When Big Sky Summer Adventures concludes, students and families are invited to a two-day Family Conference to be involved with the therapeutic process.

During the dynamic two-day seminar, families can share in their teens adventures and gain insight into their success. They can participate in experiential group activities, individual family therapy and group therapy. We discuss parenting techniques, and design aftercare plans to establish further goals and practices that will continue into the future.

Our Family Conference brings meaningful closure to the summer adventure for the student and family.