Megkian Doyle had kept in touch with her English students at Lodge Grass High School on the Crow Reservation for more than 15 years as she pursued her master’s and doctorate in Education. Then in 2016, she and a group of residents decided they wanted to do more for their vulnerable young students.
In Montana, Native American children are 70% more likely to be placed in foster care than non-Native children even if they share the same family experiences. These children make up more than one-third of the foster care caseload but account for less than 10% of the state’s population.
“We took a broad, systemic view of the problems at Lodge Grass and wanted to help kids early on,” Doyle says. “We started asking ourselves, how can we avoid that moment of separation?”
As executive director of Mountain Shadow Association, a Native American nonprofit dedicated to repairing and restoring relationships between children and their parents, Doyle helps lead efforts to reduce substance use disorder and poverty and build a resilient community for the Crow people and those living in Lodge Grass. The Crow Reservation in south central Montana is one of 12 official tribal nations in the state and includes nearly 11,000 members.
With help from a $50,000 Blue ImpactSM grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana, Mountain Shadow Association is building up the Little Chickadee Learning Lodge, a preschool, daycare center and safe space for Lodge Grass children ages 3 to 5. The Blue Impact grant program targets social and economic factors that influence health, including economic opportunity and stability.
The Little Chickadee Learning Lodge links youth to tribal elder role models, and provides support groups and education to grandparents and other caregivers to equip them with the tools needed to care for children. Four staff members are in training and two are taking early childhood education classes at nearby Little Big Horn College. The Lodge provides daily breakfast and lunch for 14 kids.
“A lot of what we’re doing is similar to Montessori-style learning,” Doyle says. “We emphasize being outdoors, restorative justice and teaching kids to resolve their own problems. This is about connection and community. We want this to be a protective time for them and show there are people here who love and care about them.”
Creating a resilient community
In 2017, Doyle and a group of 10 Lodge Grass residents joined together to apply for a grant from the Raising Places Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which gave them funding to study the factors contributing to economic and health disparities in their eastern Montana town.
The group talked with residents for 18 months. “We learned so much about the community and about what people were thinking and how they were thinking,” Doyle says. “It took a long time, but it was a valuable process.”
The Little Chickadee Learning Lodge currently sits on property borrowed from the First Crow Indian Baptist Church and will soon move to Mountain Shadow Association’s larger 13-acre project: a family healing center that will be known as Kaala’s Village. The center will use indigenous values and systems to help families out of poverty, protect them from abuse and ensure access to health care and education. The goal is to keep kids in their community and avoid foster care. Construction is expected to begin in spring of 2025.
Nearly 90% of newborns in Lodge Grass are born to single mothers, roughly 1 in 5 of whom are teenagers. Drug and alcohol addiction have a stranglehold on residents, and many kids are removed from their parents and either raised by their grandparents or put into foster care, creating early traumas and health effects that carry far into adulthood, Doyle says.
Doyle says they hope to disrupt the cycle.
“We’re ensuring that there are people they are surrounded by who love them and care about them,” she says. “Anchoring a child to their community and their identity helps them avoid struggling with those problems as they get older.”