Special home for kids opens next month

For children in the Flathead Valley from unstable or less-than-stable homes, Intermountain Residential has served as a stabilizer since 2007.

When the Providence Home opens on North Somers Road next month, it will provide an even safer, more comfortable space for youths who might need a little help.

The Providence Home, an eight-bed facility, is located on 75 acres in the lower valley. It will provide a space for children ages 4 to 14 to safely reconnect with adults.

Jim FitzGerald, the chief executive officer of Intermountain, said the new facility will serve an important purpose.

“The kids we serve come from an abuse, neglect, trauma background,” he said. “They have been removed either permanently or temporarily from their parents. They’ve been bounced around from foster home to foster home. Sometimes I feel they could have got here a lot sooner.”

The Providence Home will take these children, restore order to their lives and if not returning them to their parents, will fight to make sure they end up in a permanent adoption situation.

Ryan Nollan, the coordinator of the new location, said Providence Home’s 3,500 square feet of living space are sorely needed.

“For a long time we’ve been in a rented house in Evergreen, and that’s been a great location,” he said. “But the kids have been struggling a little bit. There is not a lot of space to get away. Our location here is big, but has a nice home feel to it.”

The eight bedrooms are the size of small college dorm rooms and provide a small space where a child can escape from stress and are close enough to the main living area where isolation isn’t really an issue, either.

“We also have a sensory area,” Nollan said, “where they can have a trampoline to jump and reduce stress, a swing they can climb into or a weighted blanket.”

Many of the children are so traumatized from abuse or neglect that even these simple tactics can help with stress.

Intermountain has an outpatient clinic in Kalispell as well, and it sees more than 50 children and their families each day.

“Our job is a ton of work with the family,” Nollan said. “We opened the Providence Home with more family interaction in mind.”

Intermountain was founded as a Methodist orphanage in 1910 in Helena. Since then, thousands of Montana children have had warm, safe places to stay. The expansion to Kalispell is far more recent.

“In about 2001, the board made a decision to come to the Flathead Valley. There was, and remains, a tremendous need here,” FitzGerald said. “A need and a lack of services. We bought this property in 2005 and began services in town in 2007.”

The house in Evergreen that houses a few children is close enough to allow the students to go to public schools.

Providence Home will have a full-time teacher and one “teacher tech” to allow the maximum of eight children in the facility to continue school while they are there.

The average time a child will be in an Intermountain home ranges from six to nine months, Nollan said. It all depends on the child’s situation.

A therapist is also on site to provide individual time to each child to help alleviate trauma.

“These children are not mentally ill,” FitzGerald said. “But there is a high degree of emotional disturbance. A child might be 8 years old but emotionally 2 years old. It’s about securing trust with the kid and not about corrective measures or discipline.”

Construction on the Providence Home began last October and was finished this spring by Swank Enterprises. The $1.6 million building was partially funded by a federal grant.

“We’ve had a lot of obstacles we’ve had to overcome,” FitzGerald said. “But we’ve had so many donors and supporters from Whitefish down to Polson who want us to succeed.”

Intermountain gets about a quarter of its $13 million annual budget from private donors, with the rest coming from fee payment. Because of the nature of Intermountain, many of those fees are paid by Medicaid and the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

“The city has been incredible, the donors have been incredible,” FitzGerald said.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.