Clinical Rotation At Head Start Program Is Administered By Piedmont Community Actions, Inc.

The birth of the Head Start Program was a direct result of President Johnson’s War on Poverty Act. The Office of Economic Opportunities was originally in charge of the program until its transfer to the Office of Child Development in the Department of Health and Human Services. This department is the cabinet department of the United States charged with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. The Head Start Act passed in 1981. Today it is a program within the Administration of Children and Family. The Administration of Children and Families is a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, (H.H.S.). The Assistant Secretary heads it for Children and Families; it also has a $47 billion budget for 65 programs that targets children, youth, and families.

Head Start is a federally funded, education development program that was created in 1965. The program provides education and services for eligible children from low-income families. Head Start 's philosophy focuses on the development of social-emotional, physical and mental health, nutrition, and working with families and the community and stated “low-income people should help plan and run their own programs” (p. 41-42). Head Start has truly expanded their resources over the years by providing a full school year for ages 3-6 years old and offering services such as health screenings, referrals, and social services (p. 42). Most importantly, each and every Head Start program must follow the federal Head Start Program Performace Standards that address all areas of development (p. 42). The program is truly committed to support low-income families and creating an education system that supports all aspects of the child.

What are the goals of Early Head Start? The goals or priorities of this is to provide safe and developmentally enriching caregiving. To support parent, mother and father, in the role as primary caregivers. The teaching of the children, and family in meeting personal goals. Being able to successfully achieve self sufficiency across a wide variety of domains. Communities being mobilized to provide proper resources and environment that is necessary. But also, to ensure the provision of high quality responsive services for the family. The idea of this topic, is to show the types of things that should be looked for when choosing a child care center. When choosing a child care center for whom it may involve it should be important to look for things like the quality of care, and the type of care and learning techniques that will be involved, while the child is there.

Research for Head Start has found many lasting benefits for learning and educational achievement for its attendees. Including school progress and educational attainment, social behavior, and reduction of delinquency and crime that is usually found within disadvantaged families. Head Start addresses all the guidelines within the Family Impact checklist on providing all adequate services to low income families. As mentioned above, under Family Support and Responsibilities, Head Start is a federally funded program, which also receives donations and grants. Therefore, the federal government must increase funding to the Head Start program so children from low-income families, get early education services to help them succeed in school. Since Head Start programs have minimal funding there are not enough spots available to include every child in need of the services provided by this program, especially within certain regions.

meeting educational, health, social service, and parental needs. “Head Start also wants to help bring about a greater degree of social competence in these children (Mallory and Goldsmith,

Head Start was created in 1965, during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential administration, as part of the Great Society plan and the War on Poverty (Currie , 2001). After observing the quality discrepancies between low income and high income educational settings, Johnson realized that “Five and six year old children are inheritors of poverty 's curse…(Johnson, 1965)” As a result, he called for the creation of a program that would allow “…preschool children of poverty [to] get a Head Start on their future (Johnson, 1965).” Soon, Head Start was established, with the goal of “enhance[ing] children’s physical, social, emotional and cognitive development (Mississippi Head Start Association, 2012).”

The research finds that participants with the lowest initial skills are the most beneficial from public Head Start programs. But this study also states that Head Start program has lots of limitation. At the beginning of this research paper, the author introduces the history and definition of Head Start program and its main purpose. He states, “The federal Head Start program is the largest early childhood education initiative in the United States, giving matching grants to preschool centers that provide parent training, early education, and health services to poor children and their families” (Healy, 2015, para. 1). As the author emphasis, the Head Start program is not suitable for all children but only offers to children from the low-income families. There are still many families left who need the public

For my field experience, I had the opportunity to observe a four-year-old pre-kindergarten classroom on November 5th and 12th at Bushwick United Head Start program. The school is located at 136 Stanhope street, Brooklyn, N.Y. Majority of the families the school serve are Hispanics, and as a result, the student body entails mostly ELL students. There are approximately 130 students enrolled in the program, and out of that 130, about 10% speaks English. The school uses an additive model of English Language to support both the student’s home language and foster and support English language acquisition. The classrooms are staffed with teachers who speak the children’s home language, who can apply some use of the home-language within the classroom and providing hands-on experiences for students. Additionally, to support students with disability, the school also partnered with United Community Services (UCS), a program that offers speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy to students. The school uses the evidence-based Creative Curriculum. The Creative Curriculum is aligned with Head Start Performance Standards, NAEYC guidelines and the NY State Prekindergarten Common Core Standards.

Head Start and Early Head Start are comprehensive child development programs which serve children from birth to age five, pregnant woman and their extended families. They are child-focused programs that have the overall goal of increasing the school readiness of young children in low-income families. . These programs try to prepare young children intellectually, socially, emotionally and physically for their future educational and social endeavors. ( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2002).. The programs prepare the parent(s) to be supportive in the endeavor. Head Start has the philosophy that parents are a child's first and most influential teacher. The Head Start program is beneficial to early learning.

I am currently a student at New Castle Junior, Senior High School. Throughout, the past 15 years of my life, I have been connected to Lawrence County Head Start Program. I attended Head Start for two years, at the age of 3 and 4. My teachers were Mrs. Lemmon and Mrs. Gardner. They taught me to to read, write, socialize, and use proper etiquette. I still remember the family style lunch setting in the classroom. During my enrollment, my mother volunteered her time with Head Start to be a part of the Head Start Policy Council. This led to a long standing relationship with Head Start. Today, my mother is on the Head Start Governing Board, as a former parent.

The Head Start program I visited uses a more traditional comprehensive method. Students are all close to the same age. Since the program is federally funded there is much emphasis put on performance standards and teaching objectives.

As the longest running program to acknowledge systematic poverty in the U.S., Head Start is a family-centered program designed to promote school readiness, empower low-income families, and link community agencies and families. The objectives of Head Start are in agreement with the concept of social and economic justice. Based on the liberal viewpoint that the government should be involved with society to make sure that everyone has equal rights and opportunities, Head Start enables low-income families to have equal access to a wide range of services academically, socially, emotionally, and physically, that otherwise would not be accessible to

The lack of attention given to an individual child’s needs can be observed in the structuring of the classroom at Head Start. The program places

The Head Start Program, typically referred to solely as Head Start, is offered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The program was inaugurated in 1964 as a means of preparing children

The location we would like to start our child care center in is 6800 Shakespeare Rd, Columbia, SC 29223 Columbia, South Carolina. There are 13 licensed centers in our community within our local zip code with an average capacity of 20-240 children. There are 7 Head Start programs and no Early Start programs that operate in the community. The Head Start programs do not specify how many children they serve. Our community has 1 faith-based program. These faith based programs are not exempt from licensure and they serve 100-238 children. Our local public schools offer head start in the whole county for pre-Kindergarten aged children. There is no YMCA in our community.