Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Builds Local Early Childhood Partnerships
(Featured during EHS/FCC week)

The vision for Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe's participation in the Early Head Start for Family Child Care (EHS FCC) demonstration project was to increase both the number of providers and quality of infant and toddler care for the tribe's children and their families. Leech Lake's plan was to build awareness and community support for the project, review the resources that were already available for infants and toddlers, and put the Early Head Start for Family Child Care option into action within the tribal service area.

"Having an opportunity to develop programming that further meets the needs of children and families is of major importance for us," said Lee Turney, Director of Youth/Early Childhood Development.

To accomplish their goals, the partnership team hosted a series of local events to inspire interest in the project and to provide some of the basic training that providers would need as they began to provide Early Head Start in their family child care homes.

Leech Lake hosted their first Annual Leech Lake Infant and Toddler Fair. The purpose was to introduce the EHS FCC project to family child care providers and to help them connect potential partners among local agencies. Following up on this activity, the team created a survey to get to know the early care community better and conducted a training event in which the similarities and differences between Early Head Start and family child care were considered. Leech Lake also provided local training as a part of the demonstration project and focused on the importance of high quality child care experiences for infants and toddlers.

Leech Lake is continuing to support the providers who are now providing Early Head Start in their family child care homes. The partner agencies remain committed to building the capacity and quality of services provided to the children and families in their community using the strong local partnerships they have built.

"The future of the EHS-FCC option is exciting and appears to be a program option that the providers are extremely interested in and parents share the same enthusiasm," Turney said. "We plan on building the capacity of the FCC providers so that if this opportunity arises in the future they're prepared to participate right away."

Connecticut EHS FCC Program Builds State-level Partnerships
(Featured during EHS/FCC week)

The Early Head Start for Family Child Care Demonstration Project (EHS FCC) was a chance to raise awareness of family child care at the state level. This is important because most infants and toddlers are spending their days in FCC settings. The All Our Kin (AOK) Early Head Start program in Connecticut was able to use this opportunity to open the door to conversations with state officials.

AOK's goal was to increase family child care providers' access to subsidies, training, professional development, and program improvement. They also wanted to give the community more information about what family child care is and how to recognize a high quality program. “We saw the Early Head Start for Family Child Care demonstration project as a wonderful opportunity to begin a dialogue about family child care with state policymakers and administrators,” AOK Executive Director, Jessica Sager said.

AOK enaged in a number of productive activities with good results:

• They made presentations on the project and the benefits of the EHC-FCC model at state meetings and conferences.
• The organization is now on a subcommittee of the state advisory council looking at Quality Rating Systems.
• They obtained state funding to offer training to groups across the state in using Connecticut’s Early Learning Standards for Infants and Toddlers.
• They also wrote a publication titled “What Is Family Child Care?” that provides basic information to parents and community members.
• And one key result: It is now easier to obtain information about children’s eligibility for child care services.

Through the demonstration project, AOK was able to show that EHS FCC is a model that raises standards and holds providers accountable for high quality comprehensive services while supplying them with incentives, training and resources.

"This project helped illustrate that family child care providers can meet high standards of quality, given sufficient resources." Janna Wagner, Chief Knowledge and Learning Officer, said. "It opened the door for new ways to think about investing in quality family child care in Connecticut."

Fairfax County Uses EHS FCC to Support Quality Care for Infants and Toddlers
(Featured during EHS/FCC week)

When the Office of Head Start and the Office of Child Care decided to work together to sponsor the Early Head Start for Family Child Care demonstration project, one major goal was establishing partnerships to provide comprehensive services to young children.

 The Fairfax County Office for Children had been using the Early Head Start family child care option for several years when it became a part of the project.  They saw the project as an opportunity to grow their program and were especially attracted by the chance to more effectively meet the needs of low income children and families by drawing on the strengths and resources of all involved programs.

“We implemented this family child care partnership in response to our community’s need for child care during non-traditional hours and to be able to support more children in quality care” Jennifer Branch, Fairfax County Head Start/Early Head Director, said. “Family child care is an ideal option for infants and toddlers because it provides a home environment.”

The Fairfax County Office for Children understood that the EHS FCC option has the potential to drive quality, through more stringent requirements for training and curriculum.  In Fairfax, OFC staff provide mentoring and technical assistance to help support providers and boost school readiness.  Additionally, the staff helps parents complete paperwork and connect with child care providers.  The OFC provides a vital connection to community support for everyone involved.  Through the program, children receive educational screenings, health, nutritional and other social services.

The Fairfax OFC intends to continue working with early childhood stakeholders at the federal, state and local levels to align rules and policies, which will facilitate the achievement of their ultimate goal—to make things work more smoothly for all families served. 

“Early Head Start and child care partnerships are essential for increasing community capacity to provide quality care for infants and toddlers,” Betsi Closter, Early Head Start for Family Child Care project director, said. “When these partnerships are in place the entire community benefits.”

California Program Builds Early Head Start and Family Child Care Partnership
(Featured during EHS/FCC week)

Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo (CAPSLO) County jumped at the chance to participate in the Early Head Start for Family Child Care Demonstration project. 

The partnership comes naturally for CAPSLO, a California nonprofit with many years of experience serving families of infants and toddlers through Migrant and Seasonal Head Start and Early Head Start. CAPSLO also has expertise in recruiting, supporting, and training networks of family child care providers as a grantee for California’s Child Care and Development Fund program.

Family child care providers look after children in the provider’s home, offering an appealing option to parents who desire an environment with fewer children than the typical child care center. Since this is often a preference for parents of very young children, a partnership with Early Head Start is a great fit.

Bill Castellanos, CAPSLO’s Child, Youth and Family Services Division Director, was delighted at the opportunity to promote home-like settings for infant care.  Such settings are especially good places to provide a range of health, educational and developmental services to babies whose parents work long hours during the agricultural season.

“Now that we have these demonstration projects I hope that OHS will embrace the FCC model as viable for Head Start services because it has many benefits, especially for the younger children,” Castellanos said. “It’s a more natural setting with smaller groups; it is multi-age family environment including the siblings.”

In order to improve the public image of family child care homes, CAPSLO used the EHS FCC project to take their message to the airways.  They produced an attention-grabbing video marketing the benefits of quality family child care to parents, providers, staff, and community partners.

Family child care professionals derive many benefits from the EHS FCC partnership. For example:

• They are free to focus exclusively on the delivery of excellent care and education, since Early Head Start staff are available to help families gain access to the ancillary services they need.
• They receive supplies and equipment to improve the safety, and quality of their programs as all of which helps them to succeed.
• CAPSLO assigns infant toddler development specialists to visit the family child care homes regularly to support and mentor the providers

To assist the family child care providers in meeting the Early Head Start requirements for provider education, many of CAPSLO’s infant toddler development specialists received certification as bilingual Infant Toddler Child Development Associate (CDA) advisors. Child Care Resource and Referral agencies in the multi-county area assist by developing training sessions for the providers to obtain necessary training hours toward their CDA’s.

According to Castellanos, “Completion of the CDA gives the providers a strong sense of accomplishment and inspires them to think about the next steps toward a college degree, such as taking an English class or some ECE units. We have partnerships with Community Colleges to assist with this when the providers are ready.”  

I was born in South Boston, Massachusetts in 1962. I was the fourth child of an Irish Catholic family and poverty was our way of life. We lived in a small public housing unit in the B Street projects. We stood in long food lines to receive our daily meals. My early years were wrought with illness. I was born two months premature and diagnosed with meningitis. My father, an unemployed war veteran, was overwhelmed by being unable to provide for his family. He soon left home.

Unskilled and uneducated, my mother relied heavily on state and federal resources to provide for us. I was barely 3 years old when Sergeant Shriver's team came to our neighborhood to discuss a new education program for poor families like ours.

My mother attended each Head Start meeting and became a parent advocate. In the summer of 1965, I was one of the first children enrolled in the new program. Amazingly, I still remember the church building where we met; I still hear my teacher's voice as she read to us. Meal times were memorable because, just like in my big family, we all sat together. And, I loved the playground swings.

My success became my mother's joy. My siblings were too old to attend Head Start, unfortunately, and I know that my Head Start experience led to my academic success. I not only graduated high school, I became the first in my family to graduate from college – with honors!

Today, I am a registered nurse and certified in nutrition. I worked as a Head Start health manager and I still provide technical assistance to programs. I love to help Head Start children and families. I know the program will open doors for them and give them awesome opportunities. As my life shows, Head Start works!

We adopted four children from foster care, and Head Start was instrumental in developing a routine and a safe place to learn and gain confidence. Head Start was very helpful in recommending resources and initiated the visits that led to glasses, etc. Both children who have attended Head Start have loved the program and their teachers. This has made them want to learn and has exposed them to more adults who are worthy of trust – something that they had not experienced before. I feel that academically, socially, medically, and in many other areas, we have benefited.

My husband and I gained custody of our 18-month-old grandson in December 2004. We enrolled him in Early Head Start (EHS), and he continued onto Head Start. In EHS, he was diagnosed developmentally delayed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He required speech, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. With the dedicated efforts of his EHS nurturers and Head Start teachers, he transitioned to kindergarten and is now in elementary school. He is an avid reader, thanks to his Head Start experience. His math skills are great. By first grade, his progress reports indicated that everything was excellent; he has mastered all skills and has just some difficulty with penmanship. Wow! This child came to EHS at 18 months muttering sounds and unable to speak. He could not walk independently and did not attempt to feed himself. He suffered from tremors constantly in his hands and arms. I recognize that without Head Start and Early Head Start intervention, our grandson would not be successful in school today. We are forever grateful for the opportunity to have been in Head Start.

When researching Head Start's beginning in Oklahoma for the Southwest Oklahoma Community Action Group Head Start, I came across a 1965 article detailing how a farmer's wife helped a rural child attend the Duke Head Start. The article ended like this: "Why did she take the time and trouble to do it in the first place? ... 'Mrs. Holloman is just that way.'"

I second that. I knew Mrs. Nancy Cleo Holloman, grandmother of my daughter's best friend. She passed away September 4, 2009, at age 92. But her story lives on.

"Thanks to Head Start, Mrs. Holloman, Junior Now Ready to Start to School at Duke"
The Altus Times (OK), August 1, 1965
by Larry Silvey

The Head Start program for several young preschoolers ended Friday at Duke, and for one boy at least, who lives with his parents in Greer County near the Salt Fork of the Red River, it was the start of a new way of life.

But if it were not for the generosity of the wife of an area farmer, six-year-old Junior Sanchez, who lives 20 miles from the Duke school, might not have been able to take advantage of the preschool program.

His parents had heard about the eight-week program and, at first, were determined to take the boy themselves. But after driving him to school and then picking him up for the first week, they had to face the facts: they just could not afford to carry it out any longer. Junior, just starting to get acquainted with a group of children his own age and just starting to rid himself of the uneasiness which comes from being thrust into group relationships for the first time, would have to drop out.

He missed the second week of school entirely. Then Mrs. Bud Holloman, whose husband employs Junior's father several times during the year, decided that since the Sanchez Family wanted their child to have this opportunity to get a head start, and because Junior was a "raring to go," she would drive him to school. Junior is one of six children in the family, three of whom now attend school in the Duke school district, which takes in part of Greer County.

As it turned out, Mrs. Holloman did not have to drive Junior all the way to Duke. Each morning, she left her home at 8 o'clock, drove about six miles north to pick up Junior, then back down to the little village of Russell — about 14 miles from the Duke school. By the time she got home, she had driven 18 miles over sometimes rough, country road. About 12:45 p.m. every weekday, she was back at the grocery store in Russell, waiting for Junior. Arrangements were made for Junior to be picked up at Russell by Mrs. Paul Baird, who lives northwest of Duke, and who was paid through the Head Start program to use her station wagon as a sort of school bus. Already hauling four youngsters, Junior was added to make five — about a third of the entire class of Head Starters.

"So many times, we can get people to come and work as volunteers, but this is a much greater sacrifice," Duke Superintendent D. L. Boyer said of Mrs. Holloman's efforts.

Junior was at first skeptical of this new way of life. The first two days he cried and indicated to the teacher in broken English that he would just as soon be home. But by the end of his first week he found some consolation in the fact that he was not the only child with this problem, and he began to see and do things with the other children that had never been available to him before. And after this weeklong stay from the school, Junior was ready to return when Mrs. Holloman volunteered her services.

"The first few mornings he would say nothing at all on the drive to Russell," she said. "I would ask him what he did in school on the way back home, and sometimes he would say something and sometimes he wouldn't say anything."

After awhile though, he got to where he talked constantly. On the way to Russell he would practice his ABC's and his numbers. She laughed and said, "He would get up to around F or G and then start jumping around, or he would start counting and get up to nine or ten, and again jump around."

Brought up by his Spanish-speaking parents, he could not speak English very well when he first started, but improved considerably just by associating with the other youngsters. Mrs. Holloman said in the past few weeks he would talk incessantly to her for awhile, then stop and ask seriously, "Do you understand me?"

The other day, he was telling her how he got in a fight with another little boy at school, and then in boyish honesty he blurted, "I started it."

Each day at school, which ran from 8 a.m. until noon, Junior would participate with his companions first in group games, then there was a period of self-expression where the children were allowed to draw and finger paint. Following a storytelling period, the class ate lunch then rested until time to go home. Boyer said that several excursions have been made by the class in such places as the fire station and the health department in Altus, and to a swimming pool at Mangum.

They have also seen several movies. "Sometimes they would ask to see the same film over and over," Boyer said, "especially animal movies. They just love animal movies."

Junior, because he is six years old, will begin school at Duke when the regular session begins August 9. The regular school bus will be making the rounds then, and it will pick up Junior practically at his doorstep.

Boyer felt that the Head Start program helped Junior immeasurably, and it will be a much easier task now for him to begin his formal studies in the public school system."

As for Mrs. Holloman, she won't be making that 32-mile drive anymore. Why did she take the time and trouble to do it in the first place? Superintendent Boyer summed it up simply when he said, "Mrs. Holloman is just that way."

    Reprinted with permission of The Altus Times

I learned about the Head Start program in 1994 when I signed up my 4-year-old daughter. I was a dedicated classroom volunteer and was there to help every day. Later that year, I applied to be a substitute teacher aide/bus monitor and got the job. The following year I became a family partner (service worker). I held that position for 11 years. In 2005, Bedford County added a new site with two new classrooms. I was very instrumental in getting that Center up and running. When the Center was ready to enroll children, I became its site manager/family partner. I have been here for four years now. So, how has Head Start impacted my life? It has helped me provide for my family, further my education, and let me grow into a supervisory position. I do not feel that I have a job, but rather, I have a career working with young children and families. I feel success with my accomplishments and am overjoyed when I see those children that were my first/second year students go on to graduate high school and move on to college. I am happy to help families better their lives by involving them in their child's education, assisting them with furthering their own education, and helping them become advocates for their children and communities. The best feeling of satisfaction is seeing a parent who did not complete high school go on to become a nurse, dental assistant, teacher, engineer, etc. I love working for Head Start and my families!