Spring 2024 Program Highlights - Friends of the Children

• March 19 2024

The Montana Board of Crime Control is pleased to announce the Spring 2024 Program Highlights recipient:

Friends of the Children

In Montana, private philanthropists, behavioral health practitioners, and community leaders recognized that too many children in Montana are in crisis - as demonstrated by our very high rates of youth in foster care, children who are food and housing insecure, and youth who face neglect and abuse. Friends of the Children wanted to support an innovative model of long-term whole-family services that is proven to lift children up from poverty and change long-term health and socio-economic outcomes.

Friends of the Children disrupts cycles of generational poverty and cycles of trauma by pairing amazing children enrolled in the program with full-time, salaried professional mentors (called 'Friends') for 12+ years, no matter what.

Friends-Western Montana launched in 2021. They are part of a 30-year-old national network of Friends of the Children chapters. This year, Friends of the Children will serve 64 families and more than 225 individuals in Missoula and Lake Counties. The national network launched in 1993 with 35 chapters in 22 states.

Friends of the Children serve youth and families who live in poverty, and all of the children served have experienced multiple traumatic events by the time they join the program between the ages of 4-6. 90% of households served are led by single parents. Providing a long-term, consistent, and loving relationship with a positive adult role model helps children build resiliency and self-confidence and greatly improves long-term upstream health outcomes.

Their mentors, which Friends of the Children refers to as “Friends,” are highly experienced youth-centered and trauma-informed professionals. Many of the Friends have advanced degrees and 10+ years’ experience working with children. Each Friend serves 8 youth and spends 4 hours per week with each child, engaging in one-on-one activities and time together in their schools, home, and community that foster positive social emotional growth and healthy connections to adults and their peers and help youth build important life skills.

The program is intentional and individualized as Friends work towards goals for each child that are set by the child, caregiver, and Friend.

Friends of the Children also engage caregivers through their two generation (2Gen) work, which they describe as the 3Cs:

• Creating community for each family
• Checking-in regularly
• Connecting families to resources

The work is evidence-based. Friends of the Children tracks all outings and outcomes in their Efforts to Outcomes Database to allow them to adapt and innovate their services to each family. 

• 92% of youth enroll in higher education, secure living wage employment, or serve our country in the military.
• 98% delay parenting despite more than 80% of their parents being teen parents.
• More than 93% avoid the criminal justice system, despite more than 60% of parents having criminal justice involvement.
• More than 95% of caregivers in the Friends-Western Montana program reported in their annual survey that they feel supported by the program in navigating public systems (schools, foster care, Medicaid) and are better equipped to make positive parenting choices.

The program is replicable and scalable. Since their launch, more than 10 new chapters have opened nationally, including a sister chapter based in Billings. Friends of the Children have also launched a second program on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Lake County. Their vision is that one day every child in Montana who needs a Friend and is at risk of entering the foster care system will have a Friend.

For more information about Friends of the Children, please visit: https://friendsmontana.org/ 

• 2024 Friends of the Children Overview
• Foster Care Brief
• Model and Outcomes
• Two Generation (2Gen) Approach Overview
• Missoulian Article: "Long-vacant Mount Jumbo Elementary sees new life with mentor program"
• New York Times Article: "Investing in the At-Risk for the Long Term"