Nurturing Center director channels founder's vision

A man walked into The Nurturing Center once and asked for help, as people often do.

He was a single father caring for multiple kids, caught in a vicious cycle. Time spent taking care of kids meant time away from finding a job, which meant that he couldn’t afford good child care.

He asked the Kalispell nonprofit organization what he could do.

The Nurturing Center put him in its scholarship program, which helps parents secure grants for quality child care.

Months later, the man came back.

Dressed nicely, he told them that with his children in care, he was able to find a job and could now afford the services on his own. He thanked them and dropped his enrollment in the scholarship program.

Cathy Brenneman, who recently became the organization’s executive director, saw that story unfold first-hand. Early on, it was apparent to her that the job was the right fit.

“It’s all about relationships, and that’s the thing that’s cool,” Brenneman said.

A former teacher and social worker, Brenneman, 57, took the helm of the Nurturing Center in February. She replaced Eileen Donahue, who left in 2014 to move closer to family.

Brenneman grew up in Pennsylvania, went to school in Ohio, then moved out West and married in Montana. She was an elementary-level teacher for a while, often coming across children who had apparent problems that distracted from learning.

One student in particular struck a nerve in Brenneman — a young boy who cried every day in class. He couldn’t quite articulate his problems, and the other students didn’t offer much reprieve. Brenneman wanted to help.

She went back to school and became a licensed clinical social worker, a position she held in private and public practice for 13 years. Then last summer a friend told her about an open leadership position at a local nonprofit.

Brenneman’s first experience with the organization was when she was raising her own two children.

“I first got involved with The Nurturing Center through ParentShare,” she said.

That’s a social group for parents to gather and share information about parenting with the help of Nurturing Center professionals. Brenneman became the leader of her group.

She became less directly involved as her children grew older, but it wasn’t out of her mind. She talked a lot about the work of Susan Christofferson, the longtime advocate and executive director for The Nurturing Center who helped found the organization in 1978.

When Brenneman began considering the executive director position, she thought of Christofferson.

“It was inspiring,” Brenneman said. “And it was exciting to think about maintaining Susan’s vision.”

Christofferson died of cancer in 2009. A photo of her adorns the wall at The Nurturing Center’s headquarters. It shows the organization’s visionary looking out the window from that very living room.

“Susan, you couldn’t keep her from doing what she loved most,” Brenneman said.

Brenneman left her clinical work to take the lead at The Nurturing Center. It was an immediate flurry of work, she said, because the staff of 15 had been churning along for months without an executive director.

But Brenneman is up to the task. She’s immediately friendly and full of energy — the type of person who is well-suited to focus on the welfare of children full time. People come in with problems, and it’s the staff’s job to help them out.

The Nurturing Center provides a variety of services. The scholarship program — -the one that helped the single father get work — is currently helping 445 families get their children into quality child care.

The center also works with care providers, offering training and licensure assistance through contracts with government agencies. Those contracts make up a good chunk of the nonprofit’s operating revenue.

“Every child deserves to be safe, happy and healthy,” Brenneman said, which is a mantra she’s carried throughout her career. To her, it seemed to fit right into the center’s work.

She sees herself as a sort of coach, setting up the right environment for staff members to do their jobs. They’re inspired workers, she said, and all she needs to do is make sure that can continue.

That’s the main challenge as well. It’s the everlasting charge of nonprofit organizations — fundraising. Brenneman said she wants to emphasize the work they do rather than appear as a waiting hand.

“When you’re funding this through grants and donations, it’s something you think about all the time,” she said.

But for now the model is working. The Nurturing Center office building is a century-old house close to downtown. It’s usually buzzing with activity from children and staff members alike.

Many there feel everything in that house emanates from Christofferson’s photo in the main living room. Brenneman said one of the most important things is to keep Christofferson’s work going, and she feels she’s in a position to do that.

A large part of the center’s work is to educate parents and child-care providers. Brenneman said support and education are two things that can deter child abuse.

Parents and care providers bring those lessons to thousands of children, maximizing the impact.

“I want us to be representative of all of those missions, all of those projects,” Brenneman said. “I want us to be representative of what that initial vision was.”

Reporter Matt Hudson may be reached at 758-4459 or by email at mhudson@dailyinterlake.com.