PENACOOK — For three children attending Camp Spaulding this month, activities will not only include games and meeting new friends, but a nontraditional field trip to the State Prison for Men.

The children, all of whom have a father incarcerated there, will spend 10 hours over two days in prison with their dads.

The camp's effort is the first of its kind in New Hampshire and one of just a few nationwide. It is an initiative of the Family Connections Center, a collaborative effort of the Department of Corrections, UNH's family studies department and Child and Family Services.

“The kids will be mixed in with other campers and will get a lot of your usual camp experiences, but they'll also do activities with their fathers,” said Kerry Kazura, associate professor of family studies at UNH, who helped establish the Family Connections Center and will be involved in the program at Camp Spaulding, which is operated by Child and Family Services.

Campers will visit their fathers at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord on Aug. 21 and 23 for five hours each day.

Kristina Toth, program manager of the Family Connections Center, said Camp Spaulding is offering a “unique, first of its kind, healthy interaction for incarcerated fathers and their children. The fathers involved are anxiously preparing for this time with their children by working on a skit to perform in front of their kids and taking an additional seminar on child development.”

“It's a great community-building activity,” said Kazura, who notes that the program is only open to inmates and families who are active in the Family Connections Center — a self-selected group of men who are motivated to improve their parenting skills and connections.

“Our goal is to get these fathers connected to their families so they will get out and pay child support and emotionally support their kids,” Kazura said.

Kazura, who has done research on the program, notes that the recidivism rate for offenders who completed the program while they were incarcerated was 39.5 percent, compared to the overall recidivism rate of 43.8 percent.

She found that inmates need just 30 to 36 hours of intervention to reduce recidivism.

There's another benefit, she said. “We see that when inmates are involved in these programs, their behavior in prison is better.”

Kazura and Toth hope to run a camp next year for mothers incarcerated at the state prison in Goffstown who are involved in the Family Connections Center.

For more information on the Children of Incarcerated Parents summer camp at Camp Spaulding of Child and Family Services, go to cfsnh.org/pages/programs/CampSpaulding/cip.html or nh.gov/nhdoc/fcc/.

ptracy@unionleader.com