HSIPC: Head Start Bulletin--Head Start Highlights: The Head Start-Child Care Initiative

The Head Start-Child Care Initiative

By Tom Schultz, Special Assistant to the Associate Commissioner, Head Start Bureau

The Head Start-Child Care Initiative was created from the ideas and accomplishments of many creative local partnerships between Head Start grantees and child care agencies.

These partnerships provide high quality, comprehensive early childhood services via full-day programs which enable parents to work. They often use child care centers and family child care homes to deliver services, and they combine Head Start resources with child care and other funding streams.

These strategies allow grantees to serve more children, optimize the use of families, build good will in the child care community, and enhance the capacity of other agencies to provide comprehensive services which meet Head Start Performance Standards. Head Start directors have worked with their Regional Offices to create initiatives such as:

KCMC, Inc., in Kansas City's "Full Street" model, contracts with local child care centers to serve Head Start-eligible children and families. KCMC provides supplemental funding and staff support in health and social services, parent participation, and staff development. Child care centers agree to meet Head Start Performance Standards and use local United Way and other resources to provide comprehensive services to additional children, regardless of their eligibility for Head Start.

Puget Sound Educational Service District in Washington State combines Head Start and child care funds to serve children through a network of family child care homes. Head Start resources support comprehensive services, salary enhancements for providers, and additional staff time for home visits, planning, and training.

We believe that it is the right time to expand such efforts and create additional partnerships between Head Start and other early childhood programs for several reasons:

Many families served by Head Start will be participating in welfare reform programs which will require enhance training, community services, and employment. Head Start grantees need to assess and respond to these new family circumstances with different forms of services, such as full-day/full-year program options and other forms of scheduling and program settings.

There are new opportunities for joint planning and service partnerships because States will be receiving more money in additional Child Care Block Grant funds this year and Head Start will be receiving more money in new funding.

With the right preparation and leadership, such partnerships can be a "win-win" situation for both Head Start and child care agencies. Head Start can learn from child care leaders about staffing, programs, family involvement, and support strategies associated with full-day/full-year operations. Head Start can contribute expertise and resources in health, social services, staff development, parent participation, and empowerment to our child care colleagues.

To respond to these opportunities, the Commissioner of ACYF and Acting Assistant Secretary of ACF Olivia Golden, the Associate Commissioner of the Head Start Bureau Helen Taylor, and Joan Lombardi, Associate Commissioner of the Child Care Bureau, have created strategies to promote new early childhood partnerships at the Federal, State, and local levels. In the coming year, we will be:

Sponsoring national and regional forums and events to engage child care and Head Start leaders in exploring new opportunities for partnership, refining a vision for collaboration, and identifying barriers and model approaches;

Convening a Head Start-Child Care Work Group of Federal staff to identify and implement ways to support partnerships, bring down barriers and share lessons and examples of successful community-and state-level efforts; and

Encouraging new partnerships with communities and States to implement collaborative approaches to serving young children and their families.

We are eager to hear about your views and experiences on these issues. We welcome your questions, concerns, examples of successful partnerships, and recommendations about how we can remove barriers and provide effective support on this agenda. Please contact Tom Schultz at the Head Start Bureau (202) 205-8323, or Lillian Sugarman at the Child Care Bureau (202) 690-6243.

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Last Modified: 10/31/01


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