A new childcare center is open for families in Crookston called Bright Futures Childcare, located at 407 7th Ave South, and is currently taking enrollments for any children between ages 2-11.
The center’s owner, Michelle Broten, is a newly licensed childcare provider that runs the center out of her home in Crookston and is licensed to be able to care for up to ten children at her center.
“I am newly licensed here and run an in-home childcare facility, so it’s out of my own personal home. I am licensed for up to ten kids, including my own. I have three. I can take infants through children up to age 11. However, I am enrolling to care for children ages two and over. The reasoning for that is because I like to be able to go and get out and do things with these kids,” Broten explained. “At the old facility that I ran, which was a group license that held 30 kids and we had a full staff, we went on regular field trips and would go to the Fire Hall and get tours with the firefighters. It’s really important for these kids to be able to get out and do active things in their community.”
Broten plans to take the children she cares for to many areas and events around Crookston, such as Community Pool, Ox Cart Days, Carman Park, and the Crookston Public Library. Along with them, she also plans to take to areas outside the community, such as the Agassiz Environmental Learning Center in Fertile, the Northern Air Family Fun Center in Grand Forks, and the Fargo Zoo. The center holds several items and necessities for children to keep them entertained and give them opportunities to learn as well, such as a fenced-in yard with a large sandbox (with the addition of playground equipment being added as soon as the snow melts), a dress-up and pretend area, toys, a foosball table, and multiple video game systems.
While the children are at the childcare center, they will partake in various learning activities to help prepare them for school and work well with other children.
“We are more of early educators, so while learning their “ABCs” and “123s” and preparing them for kindergarten is super important, daily and childcare settings are most important for their social and emotional health,” Broten explained. “Learning how to share, handle the big emotions they have at this age, and how to talk through them to calm down. Those are big things that I concentrate on and see the most importance in is their social, emotional, and mental health.”
Broten is currently the only member who works in the center but has another member in the background check to be licensed to work as a substitute or another worker.
The center will be open all year long and currently has five children enrolled in it and still has room for five more children, which families can sign up for by having a formal interview with Broten to learn more about her and the center while she learns about the child/children she will be caring for.
“I do a formal interview and orientation that I hold here, which is important, not only for me to make sure that I can interact with your kids, but you can see how I interact with your kids, but it’s also important for me to see how parents interact with their kids during that time because it’s nice to know that I have parents that are fully and actively in the wellbeing of their children as well as I am,” Broten explained. “It’s just as important to know that we have open lines of communication with each other, that they’re comfortable coming to me, and I’m comfortable coming to them.”
The center is open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and is available for families looking for after-school care during the school year, children needing to be picked up from half-day preschool, and summer care.
If you are interested in signing up for Bright Futures Childcare, you can call Michelle Broten to schedule your appointment at 701-730-2918 or message her from the center’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/562614458610342. Pictures of the Childcare Center can be seen below-
