Our Partners Stabilize. Innovate. Build.
National & State Partners
Partnership and collaboration is critical to our work as a statewide organization engaged in early childhood systems building. Working across the state, and with national partners, helps expand our efforts to improve Montana’s early childhood system.
National: Early Childhood Business Advisory Council
Founded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Early Childhood and Business Advisory Council, is an invite-only network of 19 state teams comprised of business leaders, child care stakeholders, and state administrators. The U.S. Chamber Foundation and BPC provide support and technical assistance to strengthen local and state-wide partnerships between the business community and the childcare field in participating states.
Through this collaboration, each state and local team will be well-positioned to devise an action plan for solving some of the most pressing child care needs facing their communities. Their efforts will be supported by the Council and by best practices and lessons learned from other states. The overarching goal of participation in the Council is for the business community and key early childhood stakeholders to directly engage with each other to support the expansion of high-quality, affordable child care in communities and states in ways that will benefit working parents, providers, and employers.
Zero to Five Montana is joined on the Montana team by the Montana Early Childhood & Family Support Division Child Care Bureau, the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, and the Montana Chamber of Commerce.
Statewide: Montana Early Childhood Coalition
Zero to Five Montana co-convenes the Montana Early Childhood Coalition (MTECC) in partnership with Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies. The MTECC is a statewide coalition of local early childhood coalition leaders and community group representatives who may be involved in child care, public health, home visiting or several other areas of the early childhood system.
The goal of the MTECC is to facilitate information sharing, relationship building and resource leveraging amongst its participants to ensure local early childhood coalitions are well informed, well connected, and well equipped.
Statewide: Montana Early Childhood Network
The Montana Early Childhood Network is an effort to coordinate and connect people, organizations, coalitions, and ideas, to ensure every child and family in Montana is considered in the decisions that shape their future. With more than 200 members and growing, the network is as diverse as the system it represents. Members engage in ways that align with their interests, experience and capacity.
Statewide: Montana Early Childhood Tribal Coalition
The Montana Early Childhood Tribal Coalition, a first-of-its-kind coalition facilitated by Zero to Five Montana, came together to help mitigate challenges that impact reservation communities in early childhood services. The coalition brings together 46 active and allied members, with connections across all seven reservations and the Little Shell Tribal community in Montana. It aims to shape policies that reflect the diverse needs of Montana’s tribal communities and promote equitable early childhood development statewide.
The coalition is tribal-led, rooted in cultural values, and grounded in the experiences of Native families. It works to elevate tribal perspectives in statewide policy conversations, including early childhood funding, language preservation, and transitions.