Head Start History

The Head Start Program contributes to the successful learning of children in a major way. Head Start promotes healthy prenatal out comes, enhances the development of infants and toddlers, and promotes healthy family functioning. The children are giving a better chance to succeed in school and life. Therefore, the rate of human learning and development is in the early years.

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.

Although the Head Start program focuses on preparing the children for school it does offer outreach and training activities to assist parents with understanding their child’s development and their overall parenting skills (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Parental needs are met when parents receive classes or workshops that educate them on their child’s development allowing parents to create activities for their child at home as well as when they are in Head Start (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2002).

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

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.

Provide a definition of what a “high quality” preschool program consists of and why that is important.

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

MILLERSBURG — Hoping to breathe new life into the former Holmes County Children's Home, Kno-Ho-Co-Ashland Head Start has its eyes on the now vacant building.

She declares which the chance of failure for these children is at high risk. Currie argues “those actually enrolled in Head Start are likely to face the most severe problems and are least likely to do well in the future” (683). In defending the needs of these children, it is crucial to provide a preschool program such as Head Start. This is not only an academic resource, but it focuses on the whole child; which means it provides these underprivileged children with opportunities such as: nutrition, health, education, and builds social skills that they otherwise do not have access 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

According to the Administration for Children and Families (2010), “Head Start is a national program that promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families” (para. 3). Based on this mission subject, it is possible to subject Head Start to a program evaluation based on the following questions: (a) Is Head Start provisioning educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families? (b) Is the provisioning of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services leading to an enhancement of the social and cognitive development of children? (c) Is the social and cognitive development of children a social good for which taxpayers should pay $7 billion a year? These questions will be addressed, both directly and indirectly, later in this overview.

Early childhood education has many benefits and there is the potential for many significant outcomes if universal preschools were put into place. Some feel that children who start kindergarten without previously attended preschool sometimes lack certain skills such as social and communication skills and an inability to follow routines. There were also studies done that found attending preschool could help to close the achievement gap in the grade school years. A child’s first few years of life are most important, and they absorb the most during those years. By providing universal preschool, all children would be benefiting, especially those who are in at-risk families or part of the lower class. As a society, we have a responsibility to help the children in our communities and provide them with the education they need in order to help them succeed in life.