By Karen Eisenbarth
Director, Northwest Community Action Partnership
And Patricia Jones
Task Force on Poverty
The Alliance Head Start Program promotes school readiness of children from age three to five from low-income families by supporting the development of the whole child. The Alliance Head Start center is located at 1028 E. Third Street.
Northwest Community Action Partnership operates nine Head Start centers in the northern panhandle in Box Butte, Dawes, Sheridan and Cherry Counties, and additional centers in collaboration with public schools. Through Head Start and Early Head Start, NCAP serves 300+ children during any given school year.
The early childhood education program uses an evidence-based curriculum providing social/emotional, cognitive, language, literacy, math, and physical development. Most children graduating from the Head Start program to enter Kindergarten have met the benchmarks to be considered school ready.
NCAP hires qualified classroom staff. Every Head Teacher holds a degree in Early Childhood Education or related field. Assistant Teachers have an Early Childhood or Child Development Associate degree. Each classroom has a third person to assist the teachers. A Bilingual Aide is available for Spanish translation and communication.
Class size is kept purposefully low to ensure that the absolute best learning environment is created. The three-year-old classes have a maximum of fifteen students; the four-to-five-year-old classroom may have up to twenty students. Families can apply for enrollment throughout the year.
The physical health of a child has a significant impact on the child’s ability to learn. The program provides and coordinates medical screenings including well-child checkups, immunizations, dental, vision and hearing screenings and arranges for any follow up appointments if additional services are needed. Healthy nutrition is also important for children in their developing years. Nutrition staff prepare home-cooked meals and snacks for the children; no processed food is served.
Head Start supports the entire family, not just children. The family plays an important role in the development of healthy children. For this reason, Head Start provides a Family Engagement Specialist who works closely with the families to help and support them with their family goals. This may include employment supports, parenting skills and parent – child relationships, financial education and budgeting, family well-being, physical and mental health supports, advancing their education, and enhancing the family’s connections to their community. The Family Engagement Specialist also ensures the family’s basic needs are met for housing, adequate food, clothing, medical needs and much more. NCAP accomplishes this with internal staff supports as well as referrals to community partners.
For the last two weeks, NCAP has been operating a Head Start Summer Camp intended to get Kindergarten-bound children ready for school. The intent of the summer program is to ensure that children who missed classes last spring due to COVID-19 brush up on school readiness skills.
NCAP is planning a safe reopening of the Head Start centers in August, following guidelines from Panhandle Public Health, NE Department of Education, and ESU13. NCAP is prepared to respond to any changes to offer in-person classes, full remote learning or a hybrid model. During the spring, NCAP offered all educational and family supports remotely, ensuring that all services continued. In addition, NCAP provided grab-n-go meals to the children and families to ensure that children did not miss out on nutritious meals.
For more information about the Head Start Program, please call 308-432-3393.
Next week’s article will focus on Early Head Start and how this program makes a difference in the lives of expectant mothers and children from birth to age three.