“Butte 4-C’s remains open and expanding services despite losing two state contracts.”

BUTTE, Mont. — Butte 4-C’s has won a state contract for Universal Offered Home Visiting after it was announced last month that the company would lose two state contracts.

We told you that DPHHS awarded a statewide family and provider services contract to New York-based Shine Early Learning and limited Best Beginnings grant contracts to just two organizations across the state.

Faced with this news, the nonprofit Butte 4-C’s feared the worst, as the two contracts called for a total of $614,000 in annual funding.

“It’s been a little crazy trying to figure out how we can stay here and provide some of the services,” said Terri Amberg, executive director of Butte 4-C.

They have received a mandate from the state for universal home visiting and a private professional development grant from the Wisner Family Foundation.

Universal Offered Home Visiting is a pilot program where employees meet with families before they have to navigate the child care industry.

“Hopefully before the baby is born. These ladies will go out, introduce themselves and get to know them. And after the birth, they come in and check in and make sure everything is OK,” Amberg said. “Then we do some maternal checks, other times we do some age and stage checks on these infants so we can catch things early. We know that early intervention works. And then we would see them once a year, so maybe then we can connect them to child care, we can connect them to our other home visiting services. So it means touching families four times in the baby’s first year of life, and I think it will just provide support for new mothers and new parents to feel the connection to their community and what resources are there for them. So this came at a good time to be able to bring some of my ladies into this program.”

The Wisner Family Foundation grant came from a family in Whitehall who heard about the loss of state contracts for 4-Cs.

“We have developed a proposal that says we remain an educational sponsor so we can continue to help our child care providers,” Amberg said. “If they call and exhibit challenging behavior, or maybe they come in and have trouble getting the parents to pay. Or maybe it’s their environment. It’s whatever they’ve done over the years where they’ve called and said, “Hey, I just need some help.” We come out and work with them, look at their environment and talk to their teachers . And then we can formulate training that is tailored to that facility or that child care provider and helps them succeed.”

These funding sources total $350,000 per year, and with some additional small funding to administer other programs, the upcoming cuts to the organization will be less drastic than previously forecast.

Before the loss of state contracts was announced, 4-C’s employed a total of 19 people. They have already lost their secretary and are in the process of losing their cleaner and another employee who is leaving the company to take another job in the childcare industry. Some employees are taking voluntary pay cuts to make finances work for the nonprofit.

“We’ve cut some other bills, we’ve had to deal with benefit cuts, there’s still a lot of things we still need to do, so we’re prepared for January when we lose all of that (resources and transfers). ) funding,” Amberg said.

At the same time, they are expanding the area where they handle a state contract for the Child and Adult Care Food program to include Bozeman and Helena, where local organizations are no longer able to administer it.

“This offered another half-time position for one of my employees. That was nice because we will be training someone else in the nutrition program. Many of the ladies who work here at Butte 4-C’s have early childhoods. You worked in either a child care facility or a federal program. “So they know a lot of things about meal components and ratios, so having someone trained in that to support our CACFP program is an easy transition,” Amberg said.

At the state’s request, they are also expanding their supervised visitation programs, for which they receive compensation in the form of a fee based on the number of clients they serve.

“Through the department, we are serving more families whose children have been removed. We set up two visiting rooms and only had one. So I was able to bring someone else into this program to pick up these additional visiting families, families who can only see their children under supervision,” Amberg said.

Butte 4-C’s will continue to refer clients to the new providers through the end of the year, and Shine Early Learning officials visited Butte last week as they began taking over family and provider services.

“They wanted to get to know Montana and tell us a little about their plans for working with our child care providers. So we’ll work with them to see what that looks like as they look into Montana,” Amberg said, noting that it seems unlikely they will have an office in Butte.

“You look at a lot of things. They want Montana residents to work with Montana child care providers and Montana families,” Amberg said.

Childcare Resources of Missoula now handles Best Beginnings grants for the Butte region, but currently only has one caseworker lined up to serve the region and the maximum caseload is 150.

“I do think they’re expecting a waiting list,” Amberg said.

According to Amberg, working hours will not be reduced even after the change. They will continue to offer numerous other services such as Zero to Five Montana (expanding to Zero to 17), fingerprinting, first aid/CPR classes, the Community Response program, Safe Care home visits, and will be able to stay in their home can move into your current location through at least March with a reduced rent as part of an agreement with your landlord and also receive help from the Butte Exchange Club.

“We will still be here. Our services will look different,” said Amberg. “We’ll probably look at other means and just provide more services around families and children, because that’s just what drives us, everyone who works here.”