A recent agreement between two Bozeman area nonprofits is poised to stabilize the future of certain childcare resources for families in the Gallatin Valley region, after changes to state-issued child care service contracts this year thrust that future into question.The Greater Gallatin United Way announced Tuesday it will be absorbing several early childhood learning and advocacy programs currently spearheaded by the Bozeman-based nonprofit Child Care Connections, which is closing its doors at the end of the year following a loss of state funding. Directors at both organizations characterized the move as a promising bid to maintain CCC-led community coalitions designed to help families secure affordable, accessible childcare, even as Child Care Connections itself prepares to fully dissolve as a Montana nonprofit after more than four decades.“In addition to those coalitions, they’re going to take on some of the childcare advocacy work that we were doing locally, kind of the education piece,” Child Care Connections Executive Director Tori Sproles said of Greater Gallatin United Way. “Obviously with the [2025] legislative session coming up, it’s important to keep the momentum going on childcare, so they are going to kind of step into that role as well.”Child Care Connections is one of six child care resource and referral agencies impacted by significant recent alterations in how Montana contracts those services. Support for both childcare providers and families used to be delivered regionally by a single organization, but the Department of Public Health and Human Services this spring carved the services up, awarding a single statewide contract for provider-based services to the New York-based for-profit company Shine Early Learning. Child Care Connections, along with two other existing in-state nonprofits, were offered contracts to continue administering family-based services. However, Sproles said, the money from that contract alone was not enough to support her organization’s operations.Families receiving assistance from Child Care Connections for their state-funded Best Beginnings scholarships will instead receive those services through Missoula-based nonprofit Child Care Resources starting next month. According to Child Care Resources executive director Kelly Rosenleaf, her nonprofit will be covering family-based services across 23 counties primarily in western Montana, with Great Falls-based Family Connections covering the state’s remaining 33 counties. Rosenleaf said that new staff hired to cover the expanded region will be working from home as funding from the new state contract isn’t enough to pay for satellite office space.“It’s going to be rough,” Rosenleaf said. “Once it all shakes out, it’ll run smoothly. But the transition of moving all these cases to two entities from six in a short period of time is bound to be rough, and there’s not enough money in the budget for field offices.”Some of Child Care Connections’ other programming will find a new home at Greater Gallatin United Way, which is already active on a range of early childhood and K-12 initiatives in southwest Montana. The primary carryover will be Child Care Connections’ facilitation of the Gallatin Early Childhood Community Council, a collaborative that connects families with community-based childcare resources, collects data on local childcare needs and advocates for increased childcare affordability and accessibility. Greater Gallatin United Way has also vowed to continue an initiative that helps businesses in the Bozeman area explore sustainable childcare models for their employees.“We want to continue to offer those services and continue to advocate for families and for employers for exceptional, affordable child care resources in our community,” Greater Gallatin United Way President and CEO Kimberly Hall said. “We have an early-learning initiative already through our key priorities, so it was a perfect fit for us to continue to not only just drive those programs forward, but to enhance them as well and try to figure out how can we invest additional resources into those areas.”Child Care Connections currently serves a six-county region including Gallatin, Park, and Lewis and Clark counties. Greater Gallatin United Way’s footprint overlaps with three of those counties, and also extends into Madison County, which lies outside of CCC’s longstanding coverage area.Hall and Sproles both said the continuation of those programs may present opportunities for Greater Gallatin United Way to take on some of Child Care Connections’ displaced staff, though details of the transition are still being worked out. Sproles noted that most of Child Care Connections’ employees will be retained at least through the end of this month, adding that some have already found other positions at other organizations.While the dissolution of Child Care Connections after roughly 45 years of work “breaks my heart,” Sproles said, she was also relieved to learn this month that Shine Early Learning plans to hire roughly 20 in-state employees to deliver onsite services and technical assistance to childcare providers across Montana — services that have been a main pillar of her nonprofit’s efforts in Bozeman, Helena and surrounding counties for years.“That was my main concern, is just having that all virtual,” Sproles said. “It sounds like they have a plan, so it’s been nice to have some correspondence with them just to kind of hear what this might look like.”This story was updated Oct. 24, 2024 to add additional information about the nonprofits taking over services for families receiving Best Beginnings scholarships. The post Child Care Connections crafts agreement to continue childcare support services appeared first on Montana Free Press.