Youth home begins building
A Montana agency that provides services to children and families in the Flathead Valley started construction last week on a $1.64 million group home in Somers.
Providence Home is being built at 905 North Somers Road, next to the Blasdel wildlife refuge. Intermountain has an outpatient child and family therapy clinic at 322 Second Ave. W. in Kalispell and also provides family-based services and full family foster care in the Flathead community. More than 400 Flathead Valley children and families have been served by Intermountain since the Helena-based agency first established a presence here in 2008.
Intermountain’s new facility will offer short-term emergency shelter care. Other services include therapeutic family care, family wrap-around services, child and family outpatient therapy and training of families and professionals.
“This is very exciting,” said Pam Schapper, a member of Intermountain’s board of directors and longtime volunteer. “We have been working toward this for a very long time.”
Intermountain purchased the property seven years ago and had been raising the money since then for the facility. A $450,000 federal block grant was released for the project in January.
“Seven years ago, the board made a firm commitment to provide services in the Flathead Valley,” Schapper said. “Since then Intermountain has been renting facilities for Providence Home and for its outpatient services.
“It’s difficult to find the right kind of space that fits our requirements,” she added.
Providence Home will be a 5,500-square-foot home for up to eight children in need of intensive therapeutic care and support. The facility will include space for counseling, meetings and staff offices.
Other major support has come through the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, Treacy Foundation, Steele-Reese Foundation, Gallagher Western Montana Charitable Foundation, Zinngrabe Charitable Foundation, William H. and Margaret M. Wallace Foundation and many individual donors.
To date, more than $1.35 million has been raised or pledged and an effort to raise the final $291,000 is underway.
Intermountain was founded in Helena in 1909. The agency provides integrated services to help families create and sustain nurturing, healthy environments. The campus in Helena provides the framework for the program at Providence Home.
For more information about Providence Home or the work of Intermountain, contact David Creamer, development officer, at 871-0137 or visit the website at www.intermountain.org/communityservices.