Head Start, Child Care, and Public Libraries: Partnerships to Support Young Children and Their Families

On April 24, 2012, IMLS Director Susan Hildreth joined Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, director of the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) Office of Head Start, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library to announce a partnership between IMLS, the Office of Head Start, and the ACF’s Office of Child Care. The three federal entities issued an Information Memorandum to Head Start and Early Head Start Grantees and Delegate Agencies and Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Administrators, encouraging collaboration between early childhood programs and public libraries to help meet the educational needs of young children and their families.

Click here to read more about IMLS and early learning.

About the Office of Head Start

Head Start provides grants to local organizations to provide comprehensive child development services to low-income children from birth to five years of age, pregnant women, and their families. Today, nearly 1,600 Head Start and Early Head grantees across the country provide early learning services to our nation’s most vulnerable infants, toddlers and preschoolers. For more information on the Office of Head Start visit http://transition.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ohs or log onto Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center at http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc.

About the Office of Child Care

The Office of Child Care (OCC), in the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, administers the $5 billion Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program and works with State, Territory, and Tribal governments to provide support for children and their families in finding affordable, high-quality child care. OCC is committed to helping more children in low-income families access high-quality care. For more information visit www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ccb/index.html.

Additional partnership content on the IMLS Web site: