Head Start Program

Site: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb/grant/headstartgrants/hsgrants.htm

Purpose

Head Start, established in 1965, is a comprehensive child development program currently serving more than 900,000 children from low-income families, 3 years of age to the age of mandatory school attendance, each year. Grants for Head Start and Early Head Start programs are awarded to local public and private agencies by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Over 2,100 grantees and delegate agencies provide these programs in every State, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Outer Pacific, as well as to American Indian/Alaska Native and Migrant/Seasonal Farm Worker populations.

Head Start has a long tradition of delivering comprehensive services designed to foster healthy development in the most vulnerable young children, including those with disabilities. Head Start and Early Head Start grantees and delegate agencies provide a range of individualized services in the areas of education and early childhood development; medical, dental, mental health, and nutrition services; and family and community partnership development through parent involvement. In addition, all Head Start services are responsive and appropriate to each child and family’s developmental, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage and experience.

How Funds May Be Used

Head Start Innovation and Improvement Projects

This program invites proposals for projects to support the development of innovation and improvement projects that could help improve the effectiveness and management of local Head Start and Early Head Start sites. Presidential priority areas that could be addressed include, but are not limited to, Early Literacy Development; Improving Services to Rural Areas; Positive Youth Development; Strengthening Families/Fatherhood; and Faith–Based and Community–Based Initiatives. Conceivably these projects could address improvements in transportation services, nutrition services, services to special populations, program management, and a number of other areas.

Amount of FY 2003 competition: $2.9 million

Number of awards in FY 2003: 30

Head Start Partnerships

Faith–based and community–based organizations may be able to support their local Head Start grantee and/or delegate by providing supplemental services to Head Start children and their families. To identify the Head Start agency(ies) in your community, visit the Head Start Directory at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb/hsweb/index.jsp.

Eligibility

Grants for the operation of Head Start and Early Head Start programs may be awarded to public or private, for profit or nonprofit organizations, including Faith based organizations or to public school systems. A currently funded grantee will continue to serve as the Head Start agency in the community until the grantee organization decides it no longer wants to be a sponsoring agency, or unless the Head Start Bureau terminates the grant for cause. If a grantee gives up or loses funding, Head Start funds will be awarded to another eligible organization in the same community through a competitive process.

In years when additional funds are available for expanding Head Start and Early Head Start services, these funds may go to existing agencies to increase their enrollment of children. Alternatively, these funds may be awarded to new grantees through a competitive process, particularly in a geographic area that requires more services.

Grants for Head Start Innovation and Improvement Projects may be awarded to public or private nonprofit organizations, including State and local governments and universities, federally recognized Indian tribes, and faith-based and community-based organizations. Private for-profit organizations may apply provided no grant funds are to be paid as profit to grantees.

Sponsoring Bureau: Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Head Start Bureau

Web site: www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb/

Contacts

Head Start Information and Publication Center

Phone: 1-866-763-6481

Web site: http://www.headstartinfo.org/

Jean Simpson

Phone: 202-205-8421

E-mail: jsimpson@acf.hhs.gov