My name is Hillary Michael. 

My family structure growing up included my parents and 2 siblings. My younger brother got diagnosed with autism when he was 3 years old. This sparked my fascination for understanding development, behaviors, and what makes us tick. I found myself being drawn to young children, making a very small income from babysitting starting at the age of 12 years old. As a senior in Highschool, I had the opportunity to attend an off-site career center in the afternoons to take an early childhood course. This course was integrated with a preschool setting that was on-site, which allowed us to have hands-on work with a child as a case study to help us understand a snippet of a child's development.

After Highschool, I moved to Bozeman with my now husband and started working in a preschool setting. I obtained my MECAP (Montana Early Childhood Apprenticeship Program) certificate which allowed me to expand my knowledge in child development while working full-time. I worked with children ranging from 0-6 years of age for about 14 years in different centers and in different roles, spanning from assistant to shared director responsibilities. The majority of my career has been as a lead teacher, especially in 2-3-year-old classroom environments.  For the latter 8 years of my career, I immersed myself in the Montessori setting which brought a different kind of understanding of how we can interact with young children and what they are capable of if given the tools. Throughout my time working in the early childhood field, I watched families come and go with their children, and with this I discovered a deepening love for the relationships that I built with each family I integrated with. I feel privileged to have had a small hand in the growth and development of their child and family unit. 

I also had the opportunity to work in a therapy clinic for 3 1/2  years, being the interface and connecting families/patients with their therapists for speech, occupational, and physical therapy. This experience offered me a lot of insight into the important role therapy plays on so many spectrums along with the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the support and semantics of how a clinic runs (insurance, scheduling, paperwork, etc). 

Personally, I've had some varied health issues over time that contributed to a state of malnutrition. Through those struggles to heal came a curiosity to understand "why". That curiosity took me to health coaching school which offered insight into the bigger picture of health and nutrition. With help from specialists and the information from my schooling, I found ways to shift my lifestyle to get better. Now, after the little changes and evolving awareness, I'm feeling much better and have an understanding of how I got to that point and what really goes into our day-to-day wellness.

I live over yonder in Belgrade with my cat, my dog, and my husband :) We are both Montana natives and thrive in getting outdoors whether in our yard or camping. When we aren't doing that we are creating projects to do. We stay busy, to say the least...

With that snippet into my life, I hope you'll see that through all my experiences, one thing has always held true to what I want to do --> support families with their young children.