What our team shared this week at the Montana Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect Conference.

This week, our Executive Director, Nina Hernandez, traveled to Missoula to co-present at the Montana Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect Conference, alongside Dr. Chris Olszewski of Billings Public Schools, and with input from our Program Director, Natasha. Their session, Education as Prevention, sat right at the heart of this year's conference theme: United by Purpose.

That theme could not be a better fit for the partnership we get to be part of with Billings Public Schools, and it's exactly why this work was worth sharing on a state stage.

A partnership built around the whole child

Our Friends are paid, professional mentors who walk alongside the children on their roster from kindergarten through high school graduation - 12+ years, no matter what. They spend time with each child at home, in the community, and at school.

The school piece is what we got to share in Missoula. With a dedicated partnership coordinator, careful protocols around student privacy, and real, steady communication between Friends and educators, our work with Billings Public Schools is grounded in the goals that matter most — better attendance, positive behavior, and steady academic growth. Mentors and teachers move in step for each child, and the kids can feel it.

One young person we walk with

One young person we serve has shown remarkable persistence over the past two years. Through a stretch of housing instability and the missed school days that came with it, they kept moving forward. Today, with a Friend by their side, they are in stable housing, attending school more consistently, making academic progress, participating in after-school programs, and reconnecting with their cultural identity by learning their Native language.

The work this child is doing is theirs. The presence of a Friend through every step of it, through every move, every change, every hard day, and every breakthrough, is what we mean when we say no matter what.

What's ahead

Our partnership with Billings Public Schools is growing, and as it does, so does our shared capacity to show up for more children and families across Eastern Montana. United by purpose, child by child.