Head Start / Early Head Start

What is Head Start?

Head Start is a national child development program for children from birth to age 5, which provides services to promote academic, social and emotional development for income-eligible families. Created in 1965, Head Start is the most successful, longest-running, national school readiness program in the United States. Head Start is a child-centered, family focused, comprehensive and community-based program. Head Start provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, dental, mental health, social services and parent involvement opportunities to income eligible children and their families.

Head Start's Mission:

• Promoting school readiness by enhancing the cognitive and social development of children through the provision of comprehensive educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families.
• Supporting parents in their role as primary educators of their children and empowering families to meet their own educational and employment goals.
• Providing responsive services that are appropriate to the developmental, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage and experience of individual children and their families.

What is Early Head Start?

Early Head Start (EHS) is a federally funded community-based program for income eligible families with infants and toddlers and pregnant women.

In FY 1995, the Early Head Start program was established to serve children from birth to three years of age in recognition of the mounting evidence that the earliest years matter a great deal to children's growth and development.

Early Head Start's Mission:

• to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women,
• to enhance the development of very young children, and
• to promote healthy family functioning.

If you are interested in enrolling your child in Head Start or Early Head Start please click here to contact the program in your local community.