LODGE GRASS — A new childcare addition for Lodge Grass was unveiled on Saturday and will help offer opportunities for children with parents in active substance recovery.
The Little Chickadee Learning Lodge will serve as a daycare center for children aged 3 to 5, primarily those in kinship care who are being cared for by a family member.
Often due to substance use, children will be placed in the foster care system. Due to the lack of foster families in Lodge Grass, they are often sent elsewhere. The lodge will help fill that much-needed gap in the community.
“There aren't very many foster families here on the reservation. Many get relocated outside. Majority to Billings, and that can be a huge culture shock to these kids, but also they're so far removed from their culture, their biological families," said Hannah Phelan, the lodge's director.
According to research organization Child Trends, Montana has one of the highest percentage of Native American children in foster care systems. Thirty-six percent are Native American, who only make up 9% of the total child population as of 2022.
The daycare aims to combat these statistics by providing a safe and supportive environment for children and helping to keep families together. They have the capacity to serve 12 children full-time and ensure access to early childhood education and build life skills.
“This space will be trauma-informed, but also allowing a safe space that offers stability as well for these kids to hopefully also maybe jump-start healing for them as well," said Phelan.
The daycare is the project of Mountain Shadow Association (MSA, a nonprofit that works to help revitalize Lodge Grass and the surrounding Crow area. MSA’s mission centers on supporting families affected by substance abuse, and their programs currently benefit 84 children.
The daycare is just one piece of a larger picture. The program is working toward building a family healing center on a 13-acre plot near Lodge Grass High School that will offer various services for families navigating addiction together.
“The long-term goal is Kaala's Village, which 'Kaala' for Crows means 'grandma.' It will have two foster wings in it to bring in children who would otherwise be removed. They would focus on healing the children and the parents separately,” said Phelan. “Whenever social services says it is okay to reunite those families, they would be reunited on our site to learn how to be a healthy family."
On Saturday, MSA announced it had met the $500,000 challenge grant offered by the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation Founders Initiative through sponsor donations and funds. The $1 million will go toward building the village project in the coming years.
“It truly does take a village to raise a child,” said Anna Bellrock, one of the daycare's teachers.
Bellrock herself has been impacted by the organization's mission. She fell into addiction several years ago after losing her sister. Her three daughters were often taken care of by those in her community. Now 32 months in recovery, she wants to give back.
“My kids were just really well taken care of. They had everything they needed. They had probably so much more love in that moment. I feel like throughout all this too, it's helping me to even become a better parent to them and to understand them more, too," said Bellrock.
For Bellrock, working at the daycare represents a vital step in her recovery journey.
“When I was a part of just the drug realm, you know, that contributed to darkness, so now I feel like this is a way to redeem myself and to be a part of the light and to bring hope to this place,” said Bellrock.
Next door to the new daycare is the Lodge Grass Community Family Wellness Center. The center offers courses and treatment options through MSA for adults also in active recovery.
“It's just more of us getting to the core base of the problem in our community instead of just bandaging what is going on with our people," said Nina Hill, the center's behavioral peer support specialist. "We're just seeing a lot of the betterment of the outcome of our community and they're getting more involved with us, with our classes."
Hill herself has been in recovery for over seven years and uses her own experience to help her better serve those in her classes.
“We're all at the same level and we're just trying to fix it, fix everybody. We're just trying to help each other be a better community," said Hill. “If I can help somebody and help somebody on my reservation and be a part of that betterment of my community and my reservation, it's a great impact on me.”
Ultimately, the hope for both the Little Chickadee Learning Lodge and the wellness center is to heal and reunite families affected by addiction—an issue that has deeply impacted many in the Lodge Grass community.
“Celebrating recovery, all of that is for them. It involves the whole family. It's not just certain people," said Hill.
The lodge is currently in an open house period and plans to fully open in the coming weeks, operating from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
