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| Overview | Partnerships | Disabilities | Family | Health | Infant/Toddler Development | Services to Pregnant Women | Staff Development | Research and Evaluation | Resources | Support Network
The mission of Early Head Start (EHS) is to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, enhance the development of very young children, and promote healthy family functioning. EHS was created by the U.S. Congress in the reauthorization of the Head Start Act in 1994. Since its inception, EHS has grown to a nationwide effort of 708 community-based programs serving 61,500 children. The total budget for EHS for 2003 was $654 million.
Early Head Start incorporates current research and best practice in providing services to low-income young children and their families. In 1994 the Carnegie Foundation of New York released a report, Starting Points, revealing what it called a "quiet crisis" facing families and infants and toddlers in the United States. The report identified several major factors contributing to the crisis, including lack of adequate prenatal care, parent isolation, substandard child care, poverty, and inadequate health care. During the same period, research on brain development revealed how crucial the first years of a child's life are to healthy development. The 2000 report From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development, released by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, states that relationships formed in the earliest years are the "basic structure within which all meaningful development unfolds."
EHS is an intensive, comprehensive, flexible program that is designed to reinforce and respond to the unique strengths and needs of each individual child and family. The program services include:
As with Head Start, Early Head Start offers children and families comprehensive child development services through center-based, home-based, and combination program options. Children and families enrolled in center-based programs receive comprehensive child development services in a center-based setting, supplemented with home visits by the child's teacher and other EHS staff. In home-based settings children and their families are supported through weekly home visits and bi-monthly group socialization experiences. EHS also serves children through locally designed family child care options, in which certified child care providers care for children in their homes. Program and staffing requirements for each of these options are outlined in the Head Start Program Performance Standards.
The community and family assessments
undertaken by EHS programs help them to determine which program option(s)
best meet the needs of families in their local community. Often one
program option does not meet the developmental needs of a child over
a 3-year period, or support the family's changing needs and circumstances.
As a result, EHS programs often offer more than one program option so
that children can receive the services they need as their family needs
change.
The Head Start Program Performance Standards provide specific quality standards for the provision of EHS services to children prebirth to age 5. Major elements of the standards include early childhood development and health services, family and community partnerships, staffing, and program design and management. In order to meet the requirement of the 1998 Reauthorization of the Head Start Act, EHS is striving to ensure that 50 percent of center-based staff have an AA or BA degree by the year 2003. Head Start programs are required to involve parents and community representatives in all areas of the program, including policy, program design, curriculum, and management decisions.
Just as with preschool Head Start, EHS is a child development program primarily for low-income families who meet the Federal poverty guidelines. The Head Start Program Performance Standards require that at least 10 percent of the total number of enrollment opportunities be made available to children with disabilities. Once enrolled, children are eligible for EHS until 3 years of age or when they are transitioned into an appropriate preschool setting.
Program Administration
EHS local programs are administered
by the Head Start Bureau, the regional offices of the Administration
for Children and Families (ACF), and the American Indian Programs
Branch. Regional office responsibilities include grants administration,
monitoring evaluations, site visits, and ongoing support to programs.
Local programs are evaluated by Federal program specialists and consultants
every 3 years, and more frequently as needed.
Training and Technical Assistance
Staff development is central to providing
high-quality, comprehensive, and culturally sensitive services to
children and families in Early Head Start. EHS programs are supported
directly by Federal staff and a network of regional and national training
and technical assistance (T/TA) providers.
The Early Head Start National Resource Center
(EHS NRC) is currently operated by ZERO TO THREE in Washington, D.C., in collaboration
with WestEd of Sausalito, California. The EHS NRC provides training and technical
assistance through leadership meetings, a comprehensive Web site, and national
training events. The EHS NRC works to ensure that EHS programs have information
and training about best practices in all areas of program services and management.
Additional forms of T/TA include significant
partnership efforts by the Head Start Bureau. The Hilton/Early Head Start
training program is a private partnership with the Conrad Hilton Foundation
that supports the development of quality, collaborative, inclusive services
to infants and toddlers who have significant disabilities.
EHS Future and Challenges
Early Head Start faces many challenges
as it expands, matures, and continues to improve program quality. EHS
programs must:
Local grantees continue to focus on developing and implementing quality programs that reflect current research and best practice and to work toward promoting the Head Start goal of social competence in children. Early Head Start exemplifies the ideals of Head Start and is a national laboratory for providing quality services to support pregnant women, infants, toddlers, and their families.
References:
Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children, the Report of the Carnegie Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children. Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1994.
Shonkoff, Jack P., and Deborah A. Phillips, eds. From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. National Academy Press, 2000.
Head Start Program Performance Standards and Other Regulations
(45CFR Parts 1301, 1302, 1303, 1304 and Guidance, 1305, 1306, 1308 and
Guidance, 1309, 1310 and 1311). U.S. Department of Health & Human
Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on
Children, Youth, and Families, Head Start Bureau, 1996-.
Early Head Start (EHS) serves families within the context of the community and recognizes that many other agencies and groups may work with the same families. With this in mind, EHS programs collaborate with partners in their communities in order to:
EHS programs take an active role in local community planning activities to encourage strong communication, cooperation, and information-sharing among local community partners in accordance with the program's confidentiality policies. Key community collaborators with EHS programs include: health care providers, including dental health, mental health, and nutrition services; individuals and agencies that provide services to children with disabilities and their families; family preservation and support services; child protective services; local elementary schools and other educational and cultural institutions; and providers of child care services.
Partnerships with child care providers have become increasingly important as EHS programs seek ways of meeting the changing child care needs of families. Through collaborations with child care providers, EHS programs can better meet the needs of families requiring full-day services, non-traditional child care schedules, or services for siblings. In addition, the overall quality of local child care services is enhanced through EHS and community sharing of resources, training, and knowledge.
In recognition of the value and worth of all children, Early Head Start (EHS) requires inclusion of children with disabilities. The Head Start Program Performance Standards require that at least 10 percent of the total number of enrollment opportunities be made available to children with disabilities. Children with disabilities are defined as those children who are eligible for services under State regulations governing Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA is a Federal law that is implemented at the State and local levels to provide screening, assessment, and, for eligible children, early intervention services based on Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSP).
The Head Start Bureau has a partnership with the Conrad Hilton Foundation that provides training and ongoing follow-up to Early Head Start and Migrant Head Start programs for the development of quality, collaborative, inclusive services for infants and toddlers with significant disabilities. At the core of this training program is an intensive series of workshops called the SpecialQuest, at which five-member community teams from EHS localities gain state-of-the-art information and develop team plans. In keeping with Head Start's focus on continuous quality improvement, participation in the SpecialQuest is a 4-year commitment that includes four trainings and follow-up activities.
Parents also have an opportunity to participate in the development of the program's curriculum and approach to child development and education, as well as the individualized plan for their own child's growth and development. The home culture and language of each family is supported in EHS as an important aspect of early identity formation. Wherever possible, staff is recruited to reflect the cultures and languages of the children and families served. EHS programs also provide opportunities for parents to enhance their parenting skills, knowledge, and understanding of the educational and developmental needs and activities of their children, as well as to share observations and concerns about their children with program staff.
EHS offers parents opportunities for their own growth and support in identifying and meeting goals. Families and staff collaboratively design and routinely update individualized family partnership agreements to ensure that service delivery strategies are responsive to the individual goals and ideals of families. Referrals are made, as appropriate, to other community resources and services that support each family's needs and goals.
EHS programs provide health and developmental screenings upon enrollment and periodically throughout children's participation in the program. If staff identifies health or developmental concerns indicating a disability or other developmental delay, children are promptly referred to local Part C programs for further evaluation and, if found eligible, early intervention services are provided. In serving children with disabilities, EHS programs partner with a number of other agencies in their local communities to ensure smooth and coordinated services.
EHS staff work with parents and health care professionals to determine if the child is up-to-date on a schedule of age-appropriate preventative and primary care health services. This schedule must incorporate the requirements of well-child care utilized by the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) program of the Medicaid agency of the State in which the EHS program operates. Programs also must establish procedures to track the provision of health care services. Parents, as the primary caregivers of their children, play a central role in child health services. They provide important information and are encouraged to participate in health promotion activities, well-child care, treatment for health problems and follow-up care, and in-program training and education activities. Community representatives are also involved in EHS program planning through participation on the Health Services Advisory Committee, which comprises Head Start parents and professionals from the community.
Ongoing assessment of each child's skills and behaviors plays a key role in developing a curriculum that is age-appropriate, culturally sensitive, and tailored to meet his or her specific needs. Parents play an active role in the assessment process. Their observations, ideas, and concerns about their children contribute substantively to the assessment, and their involvement helps to ensure that the curriculum and goals planned for the child are appropriate within the context of family and culture.
In providing services to infants and toddlers, EHS programs must support the physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and language development of each child. Services that must be provided directly or through referral include: early education services in a range of developmentally appropriate settings; home visits, especially for families with newborns; parent education and parent-child activities; comprehensive health and mental health services; and high-quality child care services, provided directly or in collaboration with community child care providers. Other key considerations in child development, such as continuity of caregivers and physical environment, are also emphasized.
Every pregnant woman enrolled in EHS develops a Family Partnership Agreement, which outlines and individualizes the program her family will receive during the prenatal period. The Head Start Program Performance Standards describe a collaborative process of developing a plan that is driven by the parents' identification of family strengths, needs, resources, and goals. Each Family Partnership Agreement is unique. EHS staff members play an important role in helping expectant parents determine how their goals will be defined in measurable terms, timelines for achieving those goals, the process for how the goal will be achieved, and how it will be determined that a goal has been met. The Family Partnership Agreement helps to determine what services families need and how they are delivered during the prenatal period.
Collaboration with community partners is essential to EHS programs when serving pregnant women. Some examples of potential community partners include: health clinics, transportation services, counseling and other mental health programs, doula services, or translation services for non-English-speaking families.
Ongoing staff training, supervision, and mentoring are central to EHS staff development efforts. At the national level, training and technical assistance is provided by the Early Head Start National Resource Center (EHS NRC). The EHS NRC works to ensure that EHS programs have information and training about current best practices in a host of areas, including design and management, child development, family development, and community development. Another partner in building EHS staff capacity includes: the Hilton/EHS Training Program, which supports the development of quality, collaborative, inclusive services for infants and toddlers with significant disabilities. In addition, the Head Start Information and Publication Center serves as a clearinghouse for information, training materials, and publications that support Early Head Start continuous improvement.
EHS programs are encouraged to develop annual staff development plans. At a minimum this includes ongoing opportunities for staff to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to implement a quality Head Start program.
Early Head Start is a two-generation program designed to provide high-quality child and family development services to low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers. Early Head Start began with 68 programs in 1995 and today operates in 708 communities and serves some 61,500 children. As with Head Start, Early Head Start offers children and families comprehensive child development services through center-based, home-based, and combination program options. A rigorous evaluation of Early Head Start in 17 programs selected from the first program cohorts shows that the program had significant and positive impacts on a wide range of parent and child dimensions, some with implications for children's later school success. Findings from the study (Making a Difference in the Lives of Infants and Toddlers and Their Families: The Impacts of Early Head Start), using data gathered when children were age 3 and had completed the program, show that the program sustained and broadened the pattern of impacts reported when children were 2-years-old (Building Their Futures: How Early Head Start Programs are Enhancing the Lives of Infants and Toddlers in Low-Income Families).
The national evaluation conducted by Mathematica Policy Research,
Inc., and Columbia University's Center for Children and Families, in collaboration
with the Early Head Start Research Consortium, found that 3-year-old Early
Head Start children performed significantly better on a range of measures
of cognitive, language, and social-emotional development than a randomly assigned
control group. In addition, their parents scored significantly higher than
control group parents on many aspects of the home environment and parenting
behavior. Furthermore, Early Head Start programs had impacts on parents' progress
toward self-sufficiency and on subsequent births. Early Head Start fathers
benefited as well.
Although these overall impacts were generally modest in size,
the pattern of positive findings across a wide range of key domains is promising
for this relatively new program. In addition, differential program effectiveness
across subgroups, including relatively large impacts in some subgroups of
programs and families, suggests directions for programs' continuous improvement
efforts.
The Early Head Start impact study involved 3,000 children and
families in 17 sites; half received Early Head Start services, while the other
half were randomly assigned to a control group that did not receive Early
Head Start, although they were free to avail themselves of other services
in the community. Parents and children were assessed when the children were
14, 24, and 36 months old. Families were also interviewed about their use
of a wide range of services at 6, 15, and 26 months after enrollment and when
they exited the program. The 17 sites were selected to reflect the array of
all Early Head Start programs according to geographic region, racial-ethnic
status, urban-rural location, program auspice, and program experience in serving
infants and toddlers.
OVERALL IMPACTS
Early Head Start programs produced statistically significant, positive
impacts on standardized measures of children's cognitive and language
development. When children were age 3, program children scored 91.4 on
the Bayley Mental Development Index compared with 89.9 for control group
children, and they scored 83.3 on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test,
compared to 81.1 for the control group. Early Head Start children were
significantly less likely than control group children to score in the
at-risk range of developmental functioning in these areas. By preventing
children from scoring in the lowest-functioning group, Early Head Start
may be reducing their risk of poor cognitive, language, and school outcomes
later on.
The programs had favorable impacts on more aspects of social-emotional
development at age 3 than at age 2. As determined from videotaped observations
of children during a parent-child interaction play task, Early Head Start
children at age 3 engaged their parents more, were less negative toward
their parents, and were more attentive to objects during play. Furthermore,
Early Head Start parents rated their children as lower in aggressive behavior
than control parents did.
When children were 3-years-old, Early Head Start programs continued to have significant favorable impacts on a wide range of parenting outcomes. Early Head Start parents were observed to be more emotionally supportive and less detached than control group parents. Early Head Start parents provided significantly more support for language and learning than control group parents. For instance, they were more likely to report reading to their child every day: 56.8 percent of Early Head Start parents compared to 52.0 percent of control group parents. Early Head Start parents were also less likely than control group parents to report having spanked their children in the past week (46.7 percent program parents vs. 53.8 percent control group parents). Early Head Start parents reported a greater repertoire of discipline strategies, including more mild and fewer punitive strategies.
Significant positive impacts on parents' participation in education and
job training activities were found throughout the evaluation and some
impacts on employment began emerging late in the study period. These impacts
did not result in significant improvements in income during this period,
however. Early Head Start programs had a significant impact on the spacing
of subsequent births; only 22.9 percent of Early Head Start mothers had
a subsequent birth two years following enrollment, compared to 27.1 percent
of mothers in the control group.
When compared with fathers and father figures in the control group, Early
Head Start fathers were less likely to report spanking their children
during the previous week; 25.4 percent of program fathers, compared to
35.6 percent of control fathers, reported spanking. Program fathers were
observed to be less intrusive, and program children were observed to be
more able to engage their fathers and to be more attentive during play
with their fathers than those in the control group.
Across the country, the populations served by Early Head Start are highly diverse. The research found significant impacts in most of the subgroups of families examined, for example, across different racial/ethnic groups, levels of parental education, types of family living arrangements, and among families with first- and later-born children, although patterns of impacts varied. Impacts were particularly large for families that enrolled during pregnancy, African American families, and those with a moderate number of demographic risk factors. The program also had positive impacts on two groups that other studies have reported as difficult to serve and have an impact on: teen parents and parents who were depressed at baseline. In the Early Head Start study, positive impacts were not found among families who had extremely high numbers of demographic risk factors (i.e., with four or five of the following factors: lacked a high school education, was a single parent, was a teen parent, received public assistance, and was not employed or in school).
IMPORTANCE OF IMPLEMENTATION
The impacts on children and parents are consistent with the substantial difference the program made for families' receipt of services. Early Head Start families were, during the first 2 years after enrollment, significantly more likely than control families to receive a wide variety of services, much more likely to receive intensive services, and more likely to receive intensive services that focused on child development and parenting. Early Head Start programs must adhere to the Head Start Program Performance Standards. In the implementation study phase of the evaluation (reported in two reports, Pathways to Quality and Leading the Way), programs were systematically rated on the extent to which they implemented the performance standards. Early Head Start programs that implemented the standards early (by the time of 1997 site visits) or later (by 1999) demonstrated a broader pattern of significant impacts than was true for the several programs that were not rated as fully implemented in 1999. This finding underscores the importance of adherence to the performance standards for producing a breadth of impacts for children and parents.
IMPACTS DIFFER BY APPROACH
Programs choosing different approaches to serving families achieved different patterns of success. Programs were characterized according to the options they offer families as (1) center-based (providing all services to families through center-based child care and education, parent education, and a minimum of two home visits per year to each family); (2) home-based (serving families through weekly home visits and at least two group socializations per month for each family); or (3) mixed (providing center-based services to some families, home-based services to other families, or a mixture of center-based and home-based services, either at the same or at different times). By fall 1997, seven programs were home-based, four were center-based, and six were mixed programs.
Impacts among center-based programs centered on enhancing children's
cognitive and social-emotional development; these programs had some favorable
impacts on aspects of parenting, but few on parents' self-sufficiency.
Home-based programs in general had some impact on children's social-emotional
development and reduced parenting stress, relative to the control group
parents. The home-based programs that were fully implemented, however,
had impacts on cognitive and language development at age 3 that have not
generally been found in evaluations of home-visiting programs.
Mixed-approach programs demonstrated the strongest pattern of impacts
for the families they served. The mixed-approach programs consistently
enhanced children's language development and aspects of social-emotional
development. These programs also enhanced a wide range of parenting behaviors
and participation in self-sufficiency-oriented activities. The mixed-approach
programs that became fully implemented early had a particularly strong
pattern of impacts.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PROGRAM IMPROVEMENT
The overall results from the evaluation of the Early Head Start program are promising and provide lessons for program improvement and further development. For example:
Implementing the Head Start Program Performance Standards early and fully is important for maximizing impacts on children and families.
Programs should continue to consider program options carefully. All program options can have impacts on children and families; however, programs that combine the features of home-based and center-based programs have the strongest impacts. Center-based programs can benefit by placing greater emphasis on parenting, parent-child relationships and family support. Home-based programs can benefit by emphasizing child cognitive and language development together with parenting and family support.
Programs will need to explore new or alternative strategies for serving
families who have large numbers of demographic risk factors.
Programs that enroll families during pregnancy, or very early in the child's life, have the greatest chance to effect change.
The study showed that Early Head Start programs can be successful with families that other intervention programs have not often affected. The program can build on these successes—with teen parents, parents showing depressive symptoms at baseline, fathers, later-born children and their parents, as well as children who are first-borns and their parents—to expand program services.
The findings show that the program is able to have an impact across a wide range of child and parenting outcomes that bode well for children's future school success. The broad impacts on child development, combined with changes in parents' support for language and literacy (such as daily reading and enhanced literacy environments), provide a foundation that subsequent programs can build on to continue the Early Head Start gains.
The findings reported here are based on research conducted as part of the national Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project funded by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under contract 105-95-1936 to Mathematica Policy Research, Princeton, NJ, and Columbia University's Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, in conjunction with the Early Head Start Research Consortium. The Consortium consists of representatives from 17 programs participating in the evaluation, 15 local research teams, the evaluation contractors, and ACYF. Research institutions in the Consortium (and principal researchers) include ACF (Rachel Chazan Cohen, Judith Jerald, Esther Kresh, Helen Raikes, and Louisa Tarullo); Catholic University of America (Michaela Farber, Lynn Milgram Mayer, Harriet Liebow, Christine Sabatino, Nancy Taylor, Elizabeth Timberlake, and Shavaun Wall); Columbia University (Lisa Berlin, Christy Brady-Smith, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Alison Sidle Fuligni); Harvard University (Catherine Ayoub, Barbara Alexander Pan, and Catherine Snow); Iowa State University (Dee Draper, Gayle Luze, Susan McBride, Carla Peterson); Mathematica Policy Research (Kimberly Boller, Ellen Eliason Kisker, John M. Love, Diane Paulsell, Christine Ross, Peter Schochet, Cheri Vogel, and Welmoet van Kammen); Medical University of South Carolina (Richard Faldowski, Gui-Young Hong, and Susan Pickrel); Michigan State University (Hiram Fitzgerald, Tom Reischl, and Rachel Schiffman); New York University (Mark Spellmann and Catherine Tamis LeMonda); University of Arkansas (Robert Bradley, Mark Swanson, and Leanne Whiteside-Mansell); University of California, Los Angeles (Carollee Howes and Claire Hamilton); University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (Robert Emde, Jon Korfmacher, JoAnn Robinson, Paul Spicer, and Norman Watt); University of Kansas (Jane Atwater, Judith Carta; and Jean Ann Summers); University of Missouri-Columbia (Mark Fine, Jean Ispa, and Kathy Thornburg); University of Pittsburgh (Carol McAllister, Beth Green, and Robert McCall); University of Washington School of Education (Eduardo Armijo and Joseph Stowitschek); University of Washington School of Nursing (Kathryn Barnard and Susan Spieker), and Utah State University (Lisa Boyce and Lori Roggman).
Building Their Futures: How Early Head Start Programs Are Enhancing
the Lives of Infants and Toddlers in Low-Income Families. Volumes
1, 2, Summary Report. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration
for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families,
Commissioner's Office of Research and Evaluation and the Head Start Bureau,
2001.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/
Consumers' Guide to Professional Development Resources.
2001 Supplement. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration
for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families,
Head Start Bureau, 1999.
http://www.ehsnrc.org/pdffiles/2001GUIDE.pdf
Developmental Screening, Assessment, and Evaluation: Key Elements
for Individualizing Curricula in Early Head Start Programs.
Technical Assistance Paper No. 4. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services,
Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth,
and Families, Head Start Bureau, 2000.
http://www.ehsnrc.org/pdffiles/FinalTAP.pdf
Early Head Start Home-Based Program Option: Recruiting, Training
and Retaining Qualified Staff. Technical Assistance Paper No.
2. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children
and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Head Start
Bureau, 1999.
http://www.ehsnrc.org/pdffiles/tapaper2.pdf
Early Head Start Program Implementation: Start-up Planning. Technical
Assistance Paper No. 1. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration
for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families,
Head Start Bureau, 1999.
http://www.ehsnrc.org/pdffiles/tapaper1.pdf
Early Head Start Program Strategies: Staff Development. U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children and
Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Head Start Bureau,
1999.
http://www.ehsnrc.org/pdffiles/staffdev.pdf
Giving Children the Earliest Head Start: Developing an Individualized
Approach to High-Quality Services for Pregnant Women. Technical
Assistance Paper No. 3. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration
for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families,
Head Start Bureau, 2000.
http://www.ehsnrc.org/pdffiles/TANo3.pdf
Head Start Program Performance Standards and Other Regulations
(45CFR Parts 1301, 1302, 1303, 1304 and Guidance, 1305, 1306, 1308 and Guidance,
1309, 1310 and 1311). U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration
for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families,
Head Start Bureau, 1996.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb/performance/index.htm
Leading the Way: Characteristics and Early Experiences of Selected
Early Head Start Programs. Vol. I, II and Executive Summary.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children
and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Commissioner's
Office of Research and Evaluation and the Head Start Bureau, 1999.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/
Making a Difference in the Lives of Infants and Toddlers and
Their Families: The Impacts of Early Head Start. Executive Summary,
Volumes 1, 2, 3. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration
for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families,
Commissioner's Office of Research and Evaluation and the Head Start Bureau,
2002.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/
Summary Pamphlet: Early Head Start Benefits Children and Families.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children
and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Commissioner's
Office of Research and Evaluation and the Head Start Bureau, 2002
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/
Statement of the Advisory Committee on Services for Families with Infants and Toddlers. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, The Committee, 1994. http://www.bmcc.edu/Headstart/Advse_Commtte/index.html
Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community: Infant and Toddler Transitions. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Head Start Bureau, 1999.
The following Federal clearinghouses have publications and other information on topics concerned with infant and toddler development and related issues.
Early Head Start National Resource Center
Zero to Three
2000 M Street NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005
Phone:(202) 638-1144
Fax: (202) 638-0851
Publications: (800) 899-4301
URL: http://www.ehsnrc.org
Head Start Information and Publication Center
1133 15th Street NW, Suite 450, Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 737-1030
Fax: (202) 737-1151
E-mail: askus@headstartinfo.org
URL: http://www.headstartinfo.org
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Information Center
Maternal and Child Health
URL: http://www.ask.hrsa.gov/feedback.cfm
URL: http://www.ask.hrsa.gov/MCH.cfm?content=MCH
National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health (NCEMCH)
2000 15th Street North, Suite 701 Arlington, VA 22201-2617
Phone: (703) 524-7802
Fax: (703) 524-9335
E-mail: info@ncemch.org
URL: http://www.ncemch.org
National Child Care Information Center (NCCIC)
243 Church Street NW, 2nd Floor,Vienna, VA 22201
Phone: (800) 616-2242 TTY: (800) 516-2242
Fax: (800) 716-2242
E-mail: agoldstein@acf.hhs.gov
URL: http://nccic.org
National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities
(NICHCY)
P.O. Box 1493, Washington, DC 20013
Phone: (800) 695-0285 or (202) 884-8200
Fax: (202) 884-8441
E-mail: nichcy@aed.org
URL: http://www.nichcy.org
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