Early Head Start: A dynamic new program for infants and toddlers and their families

Abstract

In just 6 years, Early Head Start has grown from 68 initial grantees to some 650 programs and, by early 2001, was serving more than 55,000 families with infants and toddlers throughout the country. With an increasing share of the federal Head Start budget, Early Head Start is an ambitious effort in which the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) is responding to the "quiet crisis" facing infants and toddlers in this country, as identified by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in its 1994 Starting Points. This overview to the special issue of the journal describes the program, its growth, and the changing policy and program environment of its first 5 years; explains how the federal and regional infrastructure supports Early Head Start through training, technical assistance, and monitoring; summarizes the design and conduct of the national evaluation and local research studies; presents the key lessons that the research has yielded so far; and concludes with an assessment of the challenges that lie ahead for creating a solid base of knowledge for programs serving low-income families with infants and toddlers.RESUMEN: El programa "Early Head Start" se inició otorgando becas y subsidios a 68 programas, y se ha expandido hasta llegar a ayudar a 650 programas que, para principios de 2001, prestaban ayuda a más de 55,000 familias con infantes pequeños por todo el país. Con el incremento de dinero en el presupuesto federal de "Head Start," el programa "Early Head Start" representa un enorme esfuerzo por medio del cual la Oficina para la Administración de Asuntos de los Niños, la Juventud y la Familia (ACYF) responde a la poco conocida crisis a la que se enfrentan los infantes de este país, tal como ha sido identificada por la Corporación Carnegie de Nueva York en su publicación de 1994 Starting Points (Puntos de partida).

Mental Health Moderators of Early Head Start on Parenting and Child Development: Maternal Depression and Relationship Attitudes

“…EHS is a relationship-based intervention designed to promote parental caregiving and child development among low-income families living in the United States (Raikes & Love, 2002). Funded in 1995, it began as a new national effort to assist local community-based programs because of recognition that many children in the existing 3-to 5-year-old preschool programs (known as Head Start) needed help at an earlier age to overcome disadvantage.…”

Root Shock Revisited: Perspectives of Early Head Start Mothers on Community and Policy Environments and Their Effects on Child Health, Development, and School Readiness

“…[19][20][21] Guided by community-based participatory research and ethnographic methodology, 22 we conducted qualitative interviews with 150 parents (all mothers except 1 single father). Seventy-two percent of the participants were African American or biracial; the remainder were White.…”

Why have Educational Evaluators Chosen Not to Do Randomized Experiments?

“…They were used with the Ypsilanti Perry Preschool Program (Schweinhart, Barnes, and Weikart 1993), the Abcedarian Project (Ramey and Campbell 1991;Campbell and Ramey 1995), the Comprehensive Child Development Program (Goodson et al 2000), Olds's home nurse visiting program (Olds et al 1997), Early Head Start (Raikes and Love 2002), and even the new Head Start study (Cook and Puma 2002). While preschool experiments generally take place in child care centers or homes rather than schools, instruction is usually evaluated, and changes in cognition and social behavior are the major outcomes, just as they are in school-based pedagogic studies.…”