News you can use
News you can use
The organizations Family Connections and Raise Montana are launching Childcare Connect Montana, a service that links fully trained, quality substitute child care staff with area child care programs.
Raise Montana Shared Services Coordinator Suzy Bertsche said Childcare Connect Montana addresses both the state’s child care capacity and workforce shortages while supporting small businesses, families and community members.
Family Connections and Raise Montana are looking for individuals in Havre, Glendive, Glasgow and Sidney to apply to become a child care substitute.
“Every family deserves a care provider who is devoted to providing the highest quality of care for their child, having qualified substitute care available to allow full-time caregivers to take time to care for themselves enables them to provide that high quality care,” Region 6 STARS Consultant and Professional Development Specialist for Family Connections Tammy Phelps said in a press release.
The press release cites a May 2021 report from Kids Count Montana which revealed statewide there are only enough child care slots available for one in three children.
It adds that the lack of access to child care has even more of an impact in rural and tribal communities.
“Depending on the size of the child care program, be it family, group or center, they can only have X number of kids for how many staff they (have.) So out of all of the spots that individuals, that children can have in the state, there’s not enough open, because we don’t have enough child care providers to serve only 1 in 3,” Bertsche told Havre Daily News this morning.
Kids Count Montana reported rural counties on average only have child care for 23 percent of children with all parents working as compared to 43 percent in the least rural counties.
The release also cites The Early Childhood Workforce Index data from 2020 that the 4,380 individuals in Montana’s early childhood workforce are tasked with caring for and educating Montana’s 74,016 children ages under a year old to age five.
“The daily care and education components that come with working in child care are unique. Children are not paperwork that can sit and wait on your desk if your staff is sick or on vacation,” Lesa Schock, director of Our Savior Lutheran Child Care in Glendive, said in the release.
Childcare Connect Montana launches later this month through an online platform.
Bertsche said the platform is specifically just for subs and the child care providers to get connected. She said interested individuals can go to raisemontana.org and also text “sub” to 59925 for more information and to apply.
Bertsche added that once people apply, go through training, a background check and such, then they’re given access to the platform.
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