New Community Minded Enterprises director continues kid-centered efforts

Picture a not-so-green, tired-looking field. On one side are families, struggling to make ends meet, already feeling defeated. On the other side are gigantic question marks labeled ‘childcare’ and ‘early learning,’ with no clear path to success. Kathy Thamm, new executive director at Community Minded Enterprises and longtime early learning and childcare advocate and facilitator, knows this uneven playing field well. She joined CME in 2004 when her organization, Northwest Regional Facilitators, merged its Family Care Resources focus with Community-Minded Enterprises, and became CME’s Family Resources Initiative. Thamm became the initiative’s director, and last October, was asked to head the entire organization, replacing Dan Baumgartner, who retired after 15 years. “We were really eager to get under CME’s umbrella…we liked its diversity and the professional opportunities it allowed our staff,” said Thamm. CME consists of five initiatives—Family Resources, Health and Wellness, Equity and Diversity, Community Based Economic Development, and Community Minded TV, a community access channel which trains and mentors community members to record and edit their own stories. Though she’s responsible for more areas with the new position, discussing the need for more resources for families remains high on her priority list. With cuts in the state Working Connections Child Care subsidy program for the working poor over the past 18 months, childcare availability has been drastically affected. Thamm has watched more than 80 Spokane area childcare facilities close their doors in the last year due to declining enrollment. “A healthy childcare system is key in Spokane County for good levels of employment…which is key for a sustainable community,” said Thamm. Working to promote and advance sustainable communities in the Spokane area has been CME’s mission since it started as the Health Improvement Partnership in 1997. Initially created by area hospitals and the Spokane County Health District, the question the partnership addressed was ‘What can we do to make our neighborhoods healthier?’ Unfortunately, the childcare crisis had made answering the question tougher. Childcare centers that can’t get “private-pay” parents to help fill vacancies left by families no longer receiving state subsidies risk going out of business, so they’re moving away from low-income areas of the city, leaving some areas under-served. “It’s scary when you think about it,” said Thamm, in an earlier interview. Because of these closures or shifts, working poor parents may have to place their children “in situations that maybe aren’t the safest.” Although Thamm foresees things getting worse before they get better, she sees a lot of exciting progress with CME’s components. “Our model of five initiatives really works for us, as some years some initiatives do better and help sustain the others,” she said. Since CME is not a service provider, it can advocate diplomatically for agencies at the state level. This approach has secured more than $23 million in outside funds for the Spokane region since 1997. “We’re on a systems level with agencies…if we see rules that don’t work, then we can advocate, not in an angry way, but at a real collaborative level,” said Thamm. Recently, CME was awarded a Gates grant to work with 100 area agencies and the Spokane County Health District to streamline the referral process for low-income families’ needs. “Rather than going here for food stamps and over here for housing and another place for childcare, they’ll be able to get the information in one place,” says Thamm. Washington State was recently one of nine states to win a Race to the Top grant from the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, totaling $64 million for childcare resources and early learning. This grant primarily funds the Quality Rating and Improvement System, a statewide program which rates childcare centers on certain qualifications, then, based on their rating, awards cash incentives and funding for early-learning teachers to obtain teaching degrees. Another program starting this September in Washington elementary schools with full-time kindergarten is the WaKIDS assessment tool which will provide kindergarten teachers with a more accurate gauge of each student’s learning level, so they can better meet their needs. Since Thamm has long been involved in the early learning/childcare arena, these milestones are especially exciting for her. She previously has worked on several programs focusing on childcare providers’ professional development, business assistance, and childcare center accreditation, and has been director of Region K Child Care Resource and Referral Agency since 1997. The agency serves nine Eastern Washington counties. She’s a member of the Inland Northwest Early Learning Alliance and a board member of the Washington State Child Care Resource and Referral Network. She also has served on state agency advisory boards including Community Trade and Economic Development and the Washington Learns QRIS Advisory Committee. Another initiative Thamm has been immersed in recently is the Health and Wellness Initiative, with focus on the Healthy Teens Project. CME recently received a grant for this project, which will reach out to teens and their families throughout Eastern Washington, who are not covered by health insurance. Since 1997, CME has helped more than 125,000 Spokane youth become insured. Also widening its outreach this year is the CMTV initiative, which will soon promote services to for-profit businesses, non-profits, high school and college film students and individuals by allowing them access to equipment and reduced-priced training to develop new programs. CMTV offers introductory and advanced video production classes to individuals with their own HD video cameras, teaching them how to develop programming for CMTV and show their videos on sites like YouTube. Two other examples of CME’s outreach is Unity in the Community — a multi-cultural celebration in Riverfront Park, now in its 17th year, which draws over 14,000 people annually, and Sustainable September, a month-long series of discussions, activities, presentations, and tours designed to build community and increase awareness for a more environmentally and economically resilient Spokane. “The exciting thing about Spokane is that we can pull people together… Spokane’s potential has always been there; we’re a great mix of urban and rural but also small enough to be collaborative,” said Thamm. “There are a lot of good things happening here right now…our leadership is younger, more dynamic, they’re really making things happen…I feel a real change, a shift coming.”