Head Start Partnership

Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership Program

Our Partnership Program brings together the best of Early Head Start and child care through the layering of funding to provide comprehensive and continuous services to low-income infants, toddlers, and their families.

The program integrates EHS comprehensive services and resources into the array of traditional child care and family care settings. Child care centers and family child care providers respond to the needs of working families by offering flexible and convenient full-day and full-year services. Experienced child care providers offer care that is strongly grounded in the cultural, linguistic and social needs of families and communities. Many child care centers and family child care providers lack the resources to address the needs of the nation’s most vulnerable children.

Long-term outcomes for the program include:

• Sustained, mutually respectful and collaborative EHS-CC Partnerships
• A more highly-educated and fully-qualified workforce providing high-quality infant-toddler care and education, along with an increased supply of high-quality early learning environments and infant-toddler care and education
• Well-aligned early childhood policies, regulations and resources, with quality improvement support at national, state and local levels
• Improved family and child well-being and progress toward school readiness

Benefits

For Partnership Sites

• Additional resources to improve child care worker compensation and benefits
• Quality improvement funds to purchase new supplies, equipment, materials and
  facility improvements
• Support for staff including enhanced training, professional development, networking, peer learning and coaching

For Children and Families Served by Partnership Sites

Children and families qualifying for EHS services benefit from:

• Developmental screening and referral and linkage to needed medical, dental, nutrition, vision and mental health
  services
• Provision of diapers and formula
• Access to home visits, parent engagement activities and family
  support workers who help the family meet its goals

All children served by partnership sites benefit from:

• Low child-to-teacher ratios and smaller, high-quality environments supporting enhanced curriculum and instructional support