MISSOULA - Barriers to receiving high-quality child care are not a new issue, but developing programs in Missoula County and beyond are looking towards long-term solutions.
The Missoula Child Care Advantage is a new initiative with United Way of Missoula County’s Zero to Five.
This will create six spaces for childcare businesses at Cold Springs Elementary School, and it comes at the same time as eligibility widens for the Best Beginnings Child Care Scholarship.
Cold Springs has sat mostly empty for many years after Missoula County Public Schools (MCPS) chose to build Jeanette Rankin Elementary School as an alternative for kids in the area.
Come September, United Way of Missoula will begin construction on the school for the Missoula Child Care Advantage pilot program.
They are renovating six of the classrooms, adding a bathroom and kitchenette in each of the rooms, as well as new flooring, paint and appliances.
Renovations will mostly concern the interior of the building, as the outdoor space is already equipped to entertain children — with three playgrounds, basketball courts and a large fenced-in green space.
The budget for renovations is around $500,000 and is largely paid for by a United States Department of Public Health and Human Services grant given to the United Way of Missoula County in September of 2022.
The project has garnered support from both city and county government, and local organizations, including MCPS.
The application for providers who wish to take part in the pilot program is open now through mid-September. They will be informed of the results in November and will be expected to start in the spring of 2024.
Child Care Advantage is looking for not only current providers who need more space or want to open a second location, but also people who may have always wanted to start a daycare and never have.
Those who are offered the space, however, need to create at least 50% more childcare slots in Missoula, meaning that if someone currently watches six children, they will need to watch 12 if they move into Cold Springs.
Applications can be found on their website.
The program will offer shared services for the providers, including tax help, payroll and waitlist management.
“So hopefully that will give them more time to provide quality care,” Missoula Child Care Advantage coordinator Sally Henkel says. “Do the thing that they really love to do, why they maybe got into this business.”
The Missoula Child Care Advantage will host an automated portal that streamlines the process of connecting waiting parents to available providers in the former Cold Springs Elementary School.
“Even with that influx of need, there still might be vacancies for programs and when you have a vacancy, you're losing out on quite a bit of money,” Henkel says. “And so part of our idea here is that we're going to keep providers full with our waitlist and enrollment portal.”
The shared services will be a part of the expanded program if the pilot project is successful.
“It's not designed to just be this location. It is designed to grow and to be this especially resilient community change maker," Henkel says. "I think it could have a huge, huge impact for a lot of different sectors and a lot of different families.”
The project comes at a time when the Missoula childcare gap is increasing. A gap occurs when there are more children who need care than there is availability. Missoula County has the second-highest gap in the state behind Yellowstone County.
According to the State of Montana’s Child Care Gap Assessment in 2022, there were 2,311 children who needed childcare but were unable to access it. This creates a gap of 42.8% — an increase of 1.3% from the previous year.
Grace Decker, coordinator for United Way of Missoula County’s Zero to Five initiative, says the high childcare gap is due to several issues, and will take multiple approaches to solve.
“We really want to look at all aspects of the crisis, not only the availability but also the quality. Also, the affordability for parents because we know parents can't pay more,” Decker says.
Decker has years of experience in childcare, and being a mother herself, knows of the barriers working parents face.
“I've been in early care and education my entire career,” she says. “And all the time I really realized that not enough children, not enough families are able to access the care that they need both so that they can be at work, and so that children can be ready for school.”
Montana is one of five states in the nation that does not fund a public Pre-K program, which, according to Decker, can have negative impacts on the rest of a child’s life.
“Zero to five are the most critical period of life for later outcomes in health and education and financial attainment and just success in a wide range of measures,” Decker says. “And so what we do to support children during that period of life matters, not only what we do to support their working parents.”
Currently, childcare workers are not paid much — averaging a salary of about $27,000 in Montana. The low wages cause a high turnover, meaning a lot of the workers are young and inexperienced. In fact, Decker says she sees about a 50% to 75% turnover rate.
“They might love working with children, they'd love to make a career out of it, but it's not a viable field for them to stay in,” Decker says. “We don't have a deep bench of experienced educators who can mentor younger folks coming along.”
Inexperienced workers have negative effects on a childcare center’s quality, therefore negatively impacting child development.
“Anyone who cares about children will tell you that not just any childcare will do,” Decker says. “Child care has to be of high quality so that it provides the kind of experiences that are enriching, that are nurturing and that help children not only be ready for school but really be successful throughout their lives.”
Cost is also a large barrier between families and quality childcare. In Missoula, parents will pay on average $1,000 per month, per child, according to Kelly Rosenleaf, executive director of Child Care Resources in Missoula. The Best Beginnings Child Care Scholarship is one way working parents can find financial support.
“The goal of the program is to help parents with young children enter and remain in the workforce," Rosenleaf says. “Also in Montana, you can be in school, you can be in higher-ed. You can be in an apprenticeship program, and you could be a teen parent in high school.”
The scholarship is mainly federally funded, and it pays directly to childcare providers. Families only need to supply a co-pay, which is based on their monthly income.
During the pandemic, eligibility for this scholarship increased, with the maximum monthly income for a family being $3400, and co-payments were $10 for families, according to Rosenleaf. However, in January, eligibility for Best Beginnings narrowed, as the maximum income was reduced to $2700 monthly and co-payments increased to 15% of monthly income.
During the recent legislative session, Montana lawmakers voted to allocate state funding to the scholarship in order to raise the income cap. Maximum income is once again $3400 and co-payments are 9% of monthly income.
The legislature also overturned a law that made it illegal to host a childcare center in a neighborhood that has a homeowners association.
“So that will open up some neighborhoods, whole neighborhoods that have been closed to childcare,” Rosenleaf says.
Child Care Resources hopes to get the word out to families who previously did not have access to the scholarship.
“We hope that it'll mean an increase in cases, that more families will get help, but more importantly, we also want to reach the families who weren't eligible before,” Rosenleaf says.
The assistance will also pay informal childcare providers, like babysitters who may be neighbors or relatives.
The scholarship covers children ages 0-12 but can include older children if they have special needs.
Parents need to be working a minimum of 15 hours per week and will need to provide verification of work, kids, any benefits they are receiving and other documents during the application process.
Child Care Resources is located on Dearborn Avenue in Missoula and can help families with the application process.
“We want to grow our caseload, we want to reach all the families who are eligible,” Rosenleaf says.
Helping parents afford childcare is not the only service Rosenleaf and her staff provides. They offer training and workshops for people who want to start their own daycare, they do on-site visits to assist caregivers with their programs and have a nutritious food program for children.
