Head Start Research Paper

Head Start is a Federal funded, comprehensive child development program that has an overall goal to prepare children from low-income families for school (Administration for Children and Families). The Head Start Program is under the direction of local, non-profit organizations in almost every county in the world. The Head Start Program originally began in 1965, by

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,

For the first twenty years of its existence, Head Start was an intensive summer program (Hevesi, 2010). During an eight week period, throughout June and July, four and five year olds, from low income families, were taught fundamental math and reading skills that would prepare them for kindergarten in the fall (Hevesi, 2010). Due to the overwhelming success of the summer program, in 1982 Head Start was expanded to become a

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.

Head Start programs came about in 1964; when President Johnson declared a “war on poverty.” His idea was you must break the cycle of poverty to win the war. The program’s idea was to help break the cycle of poverty by, providing the children of low-income families the ability to meet the emotional, social, health, nutrition, and mental needs. The Parents also are offered resources in higher education, paying utilities, and other needs that are essential to succeed. According to The Basic Head Start Facts Sheet 2011, Head Start is the nation’s first national early education and early childcare program. Since then over thirty-two million children have had assistance with the program; therefore, has caused an increase of twenty-eight percent in High School Graduations (Smith 8). Head Starts main goal is to lower the achievement gap between lower-class and middle-class children.

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.

Due to Head Start success it became a half-day, 9-month program. The federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) was responsible for the program. In 1967, Head Start services became so popular that they expanded and offered the service to families with children from birth to three, under The Parent and Child Centers project. In 1969, during President Nixon’s presidency, Head Start moved from OEO to the Office of Child Development, under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1972, Head Start was further expanded and was authorized to service children with disabilities. 10% of its national enrollment was designated for disabled children. As you can imagine the budget of Head Start was becoming extremely high, as a result in the

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.

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.