The Social Policy Of Head Start Essay

Social policies are defined as actions taken by governing bodies such as schools or welfare systems that create action in society and cause implications for its members, they’re

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.

Social policies have impacted my life before I was even aware of the term social policy. Today, social policy impacts my personal life and my professional life daily. I am impacted personally by many social policies that pertain particularly to higher education and women’s rights. Social policies that increase assess for adult learners and reduce financial barriers for higher education has allowed me to return to higher education. I am an adult student who has children and works full time so attending classes in a traditional setting is not an option for me. With higher education being more accessible and offered on-line I am able to attend higher education working towards a degree. Financial policies regarding higher education have provided

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

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.

The classrooms at Head Start are a center based classroom with different areas for pretend play, math manipulatives, language/

The classroom sites that were studies were state preschools, Head Start, Title 1, Tuition-based programs, full-day programs, and half-day programs. Eighty-one percent of the children were 4-year old, 19% were 5-year-olds. “The gender was balanced, and included 36% African American, 31% White, 20% Hispanic/Latino, 10% multi-race, and 3% Asian. Approximately 23% of the children were ELLs. The mean percentage of children eligible for early childhood special education (with IEPs) was 11%. This also varied across program types with 15% of children in Head Start programs having IEPs and 3% of children in Tuition-Based programs. Regarding parent/caregiver educational attainment in the overall sample, 22% of parents reported having less than high school, 23% had high school diplomas or general education development (GED),

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.

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 mission of Petite Genie, is to provide an atmosphere where developmentally appropriate assessment, and active learning is key. Through hard work and play students have the ability to learn at their own pace, and in their own way. We provide a culture that believes that education is fun. Plant your little seedlings on steady educational ground. We will provide an atmosphere that is rich with learning opportunities at every corner, and caters to the different learning styles education is fun, the children of Petit Genie will play with a purpose.

To gain a better understanding of Social Policy we need to look at its definition: