Head Start is composed of six major parts: administration, education, social services, health services, parent involvement, and career development. Today it is the leading health care system for the low-income children in the United States.
During the 1980s, it failed to keep pace with the ever increasing numbers of children in poverty. There were weaknesses in staffing the social services component with staff having a caseload of up to 200 families. The majority of the Head Start programs could not achieve compliance in this area. The quality of programs was uneven across the country. In parts of the country it operated in isolation from other programs and schools left large segments of the population without services. Its history of serving children with disabilities was sporadic. Frequently, teachers were not trained for this. In spite of many of the struggles, Head Start did have an impact and increased awareness of the needs of children.
James Hymes called Head Start, "an underachiever" in his Twenty Years in Review: A Look at 1971-1990. However, he did state in 1973 Head Start took an active initiative to enroll 10% of its space to the mentally retarded (wording from the book for the time period it was written), blind, deaf, or other exceptional children, and the government to encourage parent participation, set up a sliding scale fee, which most families could not afford, so that was suspended. So there were some positives for the program, even today Head Start stands out, even with its apparent frailties.
As for the parts of Head Start, the Health Services to children is really quite awesome! Children go to the dentist, have their hearing checked, a child with any neurological concern is evaluated at the Child Study Center (free), menus are planned and nutritious meals are served. Immunizations are kept up to date and detailed records are kept,notes sent home to the parents. It's very good.
The Social Services part of the program (my opinion here) was rather lax. Family advocates provide resources within the community to help families in need and emergency services.
The educational part of the program was excellent in the beginning.
Parent involvement included monthly parent meetings, eat lunch with your child, summer family expo, home visits, parent volunteers, and field trips.
The evaluation part of the program was often controversial(LAP-D) was given 3 times a year, teachers could not keep up. I am not certain what evaluation procedure is used today.
Professional development was another part and this included summer inservice, professional conferences, monthly teacher meetings to review curriculum, and the opportunity for those who needed a CDA and wished to get a degree was all paid for by Head Start.
The parts of Head Start really do have great potential. While some programs were exceptional, others were not, a standard was set but was not kept. Federal monitors would come to the center from Washington, ever 3 years, and if your program did not live up to the standard, you had a problem on your hands. Head Start is a great program for children whose agenda has changed greatly over the years and is still the underachiver Hymes wrote about back in 1974.
Head Start began during the Johnson presidency as a response to his War on Poverty. A Head Start agency is defined by Federal law as "Any local public or private nonprofit agency within a community, which has the power and authority to carry out the purposes of the subchapter, and to receive and administer Federal, private, and local public funds in support of a Head Start program" (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2000, p. 404).
The components that make up a Head start program are based on Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory and include administration, education, social services, health services, parent involvement, and career development. Health services are provided on a comprehensive basis to the children who participate in the program. This includes dental, speech, immunizations, diagnosis of defects, remedies for such deficets and nutrition. In 1968, Head Start contracted with the American Academy of Pediatrics to provide consultants who visited the programs at least twice a year to evaluate how well the programs and children were achieving their goals. It was thought that a child who was not healthy would not be able to learn and function to the best of his/her ability.
Social services were in place to assist families. Greenberg (1990) wrote that social services had been neglected in the Head Start program and needed to become a priority.
Education is a key to the success of the program. It is designed to meet each child's individual needs. Children are assessed using the "Ages and Stages" evaluation which determines where a child is functioning developmentally for his/her age. Learning experiences are created for the children based on their developmental levels.
Parents serve as co-educators with the teachers. Educating parents and their role in their child's life is as important in the Head Start program as it is for the child. Without a partnership between home and school, the child will not achieve as well. Parents volunteer in many ways in the program. Some serve on local boards and influence policy, and others work in the classroom according to their work schedule.
Head Start evaluates their programs as well as the children. Self-evaluations are conducted as well as outside evaluators observing the program. Assessments are in English and Spanish. There was much controversy over the evaluation component through the years. With the growing numbers of children in poverty, it was thought that the gains that children had made in early childhood, were gone by the third grade. However, research saved Head Start and led to its' expansion.
Performance standards were published and implemented in 1975. They were very precise and intended for every Head Start program to provide the services necessary for the success of the program, children, families and teachers.
Professional development and training was intensive for all personnel. It was to familiarize them with the goals and techniques of working with children. In-house trainers, outside consultants, and community colleges provided the training and classes necessary for teachers to become educated in working with very young children. Staff training became career ladder training. As a teacher took more classes and received her Child Development Associate Training credential (CDA), certificate, or degree, she would move up the career ladder. This also equated to salary increases as well.
In 2008, Dr. Edward Zigler, known as the "father of Head Start" made a statement regarding appropriation cuts to the budget. "The new budget figures guarantee a diminution in the quality of the Head Start program. This will negatively impact the lives of our nation's neediest children. The real loser will eventually be our society as a whole" (Zigler, 2008).
Head Start programs have had their ups and downs throughtout their history. It is considered the nations's first and most successful comprehensive early childhood education program. It will be interesting to see where the dilemma of fulfilling new requirements from the government on a shoe string budget. One hopes that the ingenuity of the Head Start program's leaders will rise and meet the challenge.
References
Lascarides, V.C., & Hinitz, B.F. (2000). History of early childhood education. New York: Falmer Press.
Zigler, E.(2008). Billion broken promises: Experts warn "crippling crisis" looms for Head Start due to cut in appropriations, hundreds of new unfunded requirements. Retrieved July 14, 2008 from http://www.nhsa.org
Head Starts original intention was to get lower SES children ready for school. Head Start is made up of 6 components: parent involvement, education, health services, career development and administration.
Head Start looks to take care of whole child. Looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a child needs food, shelter, and safety before she can really learn. Head Start looks to level the playing field in order to “make up the difference” in families that are unable to provide strong beginnings.
Health services look to the child’s physical by having contracts with doctors and dentist and other health care workers provide services as well as teach healthy routines like toothbrushing.
Head Start has centers to provide an active based learning environment to children to give them opportunities they may not have at home with teachers.
Parent involvement consists of parent volunteers in the classroom, home visits by teachers, parent education and parents involved in the policy making for the overall program.
How successful is Head Start? Studies have shown that Head Start has large immediate effects when tend to decrease over time (Roopnarine & Johnson, 2005).
Congress looked at the Head Start Program as compared to other community resources and its effects on child development. The Head Start Impact Study has “showed consistent small to moderate advantages to children from participating in Head Start programs rather than other programs, with a few areas where no advantage was reported. The benefits improved with early participation and varied among racial and ethnic groups.” (Wikipedia, 2008)
Roopnarine, J. L., & Johnson, J. E. (2005). Approaches to early childhood education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.
Wikipedia. (2008). Head Start. Retrieved July 15, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Start
According to Lascarides & Hinitz (2000), there are six components to the Head Start program. “Head Start is composed of six major parts: administration, education, social services, health services, parent involvement, and career development” (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2000, p. 411).
The health services provided by Head Start not only focus on medical care but also include dental care, services for speech, language, and hearing, programs to educate families about healthy living, and nutrition. The creators of this program believed that focusing on the health of the child could help to solve other problems and incorporation with the other components of the program could give educators a better picture of how to help each child in the classroom. For example, “the presence of a medical problem after proper diagnosis might be alleviated through nutritional supplementation and the modification of activities” (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2000, p. 411).
In addition to health services, Head Start provides families with social services. This component of the program focuses on helping families to seek programs in the community, as well as at the Head Start center, that will help to build strength within each family. Unfortunately, this aspect of the program often does not have the financial support needed to meet the needs of every family.
According to Lascarides & Hinitz (2000), the education component varies depending on the needs of the children in each center. Depending on the cultural background of the community, each Head Start program develops a curriculum, which incorporates not only academic experiences but also activities to promote social and emotional growth. In addition, programs must provide bilingual support to families who are not native English speakers.
From the beginning, an important component of the program included the support of the parents. Parents are encouraged to volunteer at the Head Start centers and often become involved in the classroom as teachers or aides. In addition, parents help with program planning. Head Start centers also provide parents with various educational opportunities.
In addition to providing educational services to the families participating in the program, Head Start encourages employees to continue educating themselves. Several professional development opportunities have been available. For example, the Head Start Supplementary Training gave employees the chance to not only educate themselves but also gain college credit.
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Head Start is composed of six major parts: administration, education, social services, health services, parent involvement, and career development. Today it is the leading health care system for the low-income children in the United States.
During the 1980s, it failed to keep pace with the ever increasing numbers of children in poverty. There were weaknesses in staffing the social services component with staff having a caseload of up to 200 families. The majority of the Head Start programs could not achieve compliance in this area. The quality of programs was uneven across the country. In parts of the country it operated in isolation from other programs and schools left large segments of the population without services. Its history of serving children with disabilities was sporadic. Frequently, teachers were not trained for this. In spite of many of the struggles, Head Start did have an impact and increased awareness of the needs of children.
James Hymes called Head Start, "an underachiever" in his Twenty Years in Review: A Look at 1971-1990. However, he did state in 1973 Head Start took an active initiative to enroll 10% of its space to the mentally retarded (wording from the book for the time period it was written), blind, deaf, or other exceptional children, and the government to encourage parent participation, set up a sliding scale fee, which most families could not afford, so that was suspended. So there were some positives for the program, even today Head Start stands out, even with its apparent frailties.
As for the parts of Head Start, the Health Services to children is really quite awesome! Children go to the dentist, have their hearing checked, a child with any neurological concern is evaluated at the Child Study Center (free), menus are planned and nutritious meals are served. Immunizations are kept up to date and detailed records are kept,notes sent home to the parents. It's very good.
The Social Services part of the program (my opinion here) was rather lax. Family advocates provide resources within the community to help families in need and emergency services.
The educational part of the program was excellent in the beginning.
Parent involvement included monthly parent meetings, eat lunch with your child, summer family expo, home visits, parent volunteers, and field trips.
The evaluation part of the program was often controversial(LAP-D) was given 3 times a year, teachers could not keep up. I am not certain what evaluation procedure is used today.
Professional development was another part and this included summer inservice, professional conferences, monthly teacher meetings to review curriculum, and the opportunity for those who needed a CDA and wished to get a degree was all paid for by Head Start.
The parts of Head Start really do have great potential. While some programs were exceptional, others were not, a standard was set but was not kept. Federal monitors would come to the center from Washington, ever 3 years, and if your program did not live up to the standard, you had a problem on your hands. Head Start is a great program for children whose agenda has changed greatly over the years and is still the underachiver Hymes wrote about back in 1974.
Head Start began during the Johnson presidency as a response to his War on Poverty. A Head Start agency is defined by Federal law as "Any local public or private nonprofit agency within a community, which has the power and authority to carry out the purposes of the subchapter, and to receive and administer Federal, private, and local public funds in support of a Head Start program" (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2000, p. 404).
The components that make up a Head start program are based on Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory and include administration, education, social services, health services, parent involvement, and career development. Health services are provided on a comprehensive basis to the children who participate in the program. This includes dental, speech, immunizations, diagnosis of defects, remedies for such deficets and nutrition. In 1968, Head Start contracted with the American Academy of Pediatrics to provide consultants who visited the programs at least twice a year to evaluate how well the programs and children were achieving their goals. It was thought that a child who was not healthy would not be able to learn and function to the best of his/her ability.
Social services were in place to assist families. Greenberg (1990) wrote that social services had been neglected in the Head Start program and needed to become a priority.
Education is a key to the success of the program. It is designed to meet each child's individual needs. Children are assessed using the "Ages and Stages" evaluation which determines where a child is functioning developmentally for his/her age. Learning experiences are created for the children based on their developmental levels.
Parents serve as co-educators with the teachers. Educating parents and their role in their child's life is as important in the Head Start program as it is for the child. Without a partnership between home and school, the child will not achieve as well. Parents volunteer in many ways in the program. Some serve on local boards and influence policy, and others work in the classroom according to their work schedule.
Head Start evaluates their programs as well as the children. Self-evaluations are conducted as well as outside evaluators observing the program. Assessments are in English and Spanish. There was much controversy over the evaluation component through the years. With the growing numbers of children in poverty, it was thought that the gains that children had made in early childhood, were gone by the third grade. However, research saved Head Start and led to its' expansion.
Performance standards were published and implemented in
1975. They were very precise and intended for every Head Start program to provide the services necessary for the success of the program, children, families and teachers.
Professional development and training was intensive for all personnel. It was to familiarize them with the goals and techniques of working with children. In-house trainers, outside consultants, and community colleges provided the training and classes necessary for teachers to become educated in working with very young children. Staff training became career ladder training. As a teacher took more classes and received her Child Development Associate Training credential (CDA), certificate, or degree, she would move up the career ladder. This also equated to salary increases as well.
In 2008, Dr. Edward Zigler, known as the "father of Head Start" made a statement regarding appropriation cuts to the budget. "The new budget figures guarantee a diminution in the quality of the Head Start program. This will negatively impact the lives of our nation's neediest children. The real loser will eventually be our society as a whole" (Zigler, 2008).
Head Start programs have had their ups and downs throughtout their history. It is considered the nations's first and most successful comprehensive early childhood education program. It will be interesting to see where the dilemma of fulfilling new requirements from the government on a shoe string budget. One hopes that the ingenuity of the Head Start program's leaders will rise and meet the challenge.
References
Lascarides, V.C., & Hinitz, B.F.
(2000). History of early
childhood education. New
York: Falmer Press.
Zigler, E.(2008). Billion broken
promises: Experts warn
"crippling crisis" looms for
Head Start due to cut in
appropriations, hundreds of new
unfunded requirements.
Retrieved July 14, 2008 from
http://www.nhsa.org
I forgot one more reference:
Greenberg, P. (1990). Before the
beginning: A participant's
view, Young Children, 45(6),
42-49.
Head Starts original intention was to get lower SES children ready for school. Head Start is made up of 6 components: parent involvement, education, health services, career development and administration.
Head Start looks to take care of whole child. Looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a child needs food, shelter, and safety before she can really learn. Head Start looks to level the playing field in order to “make up the difference” in families that are unable to provide strong beginnings.
Health services look to the child’s physical by having contracts with doctors and dentist and other health care workers provide services as well as teach healthy routines like toothbrushing.
Head Start has centers to provide an active based learning environment to children to give them opportunities they may not have at home with teachers.
Parent involvement consists of parent volunteers in the classroom, home visits by teachers, parent education and parents involved in the policy making for the overall program.
How successful is Head Start?
Studies have shown that Head Start has large immediate effects when tend to decrease over time (Roopnarine & Johnson, 2005).
Congress looked at the Head Start Program as compared to other community resources and its effects on child development. The Head Start Impact Study has “showed consistent small to moderate advantages to children from participating in Head Start programs rather than other programs, with a few areas where no advantage was reported. The benefits improved with early participation and varied among racial and ethnic groups.” (Wikipedia, 2008)
Roopnarine, J. L., & Johnson, J. E. (2005). Approaches to early childhood education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.
Wikipedia. (2008). Head Start. Retrieved July 15, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Start
Components of Head Start
According to Lascarides & Hinitz (2000), there are six components to the Head Start program. “Head Start is composed of six major parts: administration, education, social services, health services, parent involvement, and career development” (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2000, p. 411).
The health services provided by Head Start not only focus on medical care but also include dental care, services for speech, language, and hearing, programs to educate families about healthy living, and nutrition. The creators of this program believed that focusing on the health of the child could help to solve other problems and incorporation with the other components of the program could give educators a better picture of how to help each child in the classroom. For example, “the presence of a medical problem after proper diagnosis might be alleviated through nutritional supplementation and the modification of activities” (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2000, p. 411).
In addition to health services, Head Start provides families with social services. This component of the program focuses on helping families to seek programs in the community, as well as at the Head Start center, that will help to build strength within each family. Unfortunately, this aspect of the program often does not have the financial support needed to meet the needs of every family.
According to Lascarides & Hinitz (2000), the education component varies depending on the needs of the children in each center. Depending on the cultural background of the community, each Head Start program develops a curriculum, which incorporates not only academic experiences but also activities to promote social and emotional growth. In addition, programs must provide bilingual support to families who are not native English speakers.
From the beginning, an important component of the program included the support of the parents. Parents are encouraged to volunteer at the Head Start centers and often become involved in the classroom as teachers or aides. In addition, parents help with program planning. Head Start centers also provide parents with various educational opportunities.
In addition to providing educational services to the families participating in the program, Head Start encourages employees to continue educating themselves. Several professional development opportunities have been available. For example, the Head Start Supplementary Training gave employees the chance to not only educate themselves but also gain college credit.
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