Thursday, April 25, 2024
For more than 50 years, Head Start Preschool has been providing young children and their families with the necessary skills needed to succeed in both school and in life — all for free.
HISTORY
What once began in 1965 as an eight-week summer program designed to break the cycle of poverty has now grown into a federally funded program that supports children’s growth from birth to age five. The program provides comprehensive early learning, health, nutrition, and family support services to children in low-income households.
With more than 1,700 programs operating across America, Head Start has provided services to more than 36 million children — including some of those who reside in Hood County.
Head Start has a total of seven locations, with one facility in Azle, one in Cleburne, one in Stephenville, two in Alvarado, and two in Granbury — the main center is located at 111 Stone St., and the Granbury ISD center is located in Emma Roberson Early Learning Academy at 1500 Misty Meadow Drive.
PROGRAM INFO
The program serves children from six weeks old to age three in Early Head Start and three to five in Head Start.
"We provide all the diapers, all the food, all the formula, and everything that they need,” said South Fort Worth Regional Director Wendy Kauffman. “We also help them with those developmental milestones. Head Start is in my blood. We're very passionate about what we do.”
In 2019, the Head Start locations in Granbury were taken over by Upbring, a Texas-wide organization that implements generational innovation to advance child well-being.
According to upbring.org, Upbring Head Start Preschool is free to eligible families and welcomes infant children up to age five — including children with special needs — in an inclusive setting. The program includes an individual learning plan for each student and provides a safe, inclusive place for them to learn, grow and thrive.
“We do inclusion plans, because we practice inclusion in our program, so any children with disabilities, referrals for any kind of Early Childhood Intervention or referral for a student with the Individualized Education Program will be included in their classroom with their age group and age range; and then we provide individualization for them in the classroom setting as well,” Kauffman said.
In 2021, 1,408 children were given a nurturing place to learn through Head Start Preschools, according to Upbring.com.
“We do a lot of hands-on learning, which is different than just sitting at the table learning your alphabet,” Kauffman said. “We do different types of learning, which is very important to the children, and we also teach children early on about social-emotional learning, which is huge; because that's where we see the spike. When children go into kindergarten or pre-K now, they don't have self-regulation; and so they can't sit like they used to, because they haven't built up that social-emotional capacity before they've gone to school. So, we're big on closing the gap there as far as like social regulation, and making sure we're not hitting our friends, making sure we're giving them conscious discipline technique, which are breathing techniques, counting techniques, and understanding and labeling their emotions. That way, they can say ‘I'm mad;’ they understand how they're feeling, and they can express it.”
Upbring also provides family support services to help in connecting parents with job placement resources, parenting skills training, and medical, dental, and mental health services.
“With our program, we encompass not just education, but we do a lot of health, so we help parents with health screenings, hearing screenings, and dental screenings," Kauffman said. “We help them find reliable insurance and then a primary care physician. We also help families with resources in the community, so if we have parents that cannot pay their electric bill or, you know, have food insecurity, then that's on our radar, so we can help them find resources for those items.”
Kauffman said the Office of Head Start is a “big promoter” of hiring a child’s parent or family member, so that they can “grow in the knowledge and skill set of developmental milestones for their children to be a better advocate.”
“If we hire family members and they come on board, we do a lot of professional development,” she explained. “We do parent cafes, we do parent meetings, we partner with Brazos River Authority where they come out and do a water safety course or we partner with WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) where they come out and do nutritional feeding. We also provide mental health consulting, so if they have a mental health need or if the family is coming up upon some kind of traumatic, stressful event, we have mental health consultants on staff that can visit with them and help them with what they're going through.”
Upbring assigns each family an advocate who will answer their questions, help with the next steps, and make sure they are providing every support that that family needs.
“Upbring’s biggest mission is to break the cycle of child abuse, and so we do that not just with the child, but we do that with the family,” Kauffman said. “Oftentimes, the families are very well educated; they just don't have the resources. They know what to do, they just need a little helping hand to get to who can help them within their community, especially out in the rural areas. Oftentimes, we find that just by helping with those resources is a huge help to them.”
PROGRAM GROWTH
Since Upbring took over Head Start around the time that the pandemic struck, this will be the first year the program will be operating without any COVID-19 restrictions.
Now that the restrictions have been lifted, Head Start is currently working to hire more staff and build more community partnerships.
“There's a lot of communities and a lot of people out there that don't know that we are here, so I'm trying to reach out and build those, so that the more community partnerships we have, the more services that they can send to us, and we can send to them,” said Missy Bird, family engagement advocate at Head Start. “That's my main goal is letting the community know that we're here, that I'm here to help them and to partner with them in any way that I can to help provide for the families.”
FACILITY UPGRADES
Kauffman said now that the facility is under the name Upbring Head Start, the grant they received can now be used to modify and update the main Head Start center in Granbury.
“We just went out for a bid, so (Granbury Head Start facility) is receiving a new roof; they’re gonna receive a new playground, and we’re doing safety updates,” she said.
ELIGIBILITY
To apply for Upbring Early or Upbring Head Start Preschool:
⦁ you must live within the county where the services are being provided;
⦁ your child must be six weeks old for Early Head Start or age three or four for Head Start by Sept. 1 of the current school year for ISD-partnered enrollment;
⦁ your family must meet specific income guidelines OR qualify under one of the following categories listed below.
The following are categorically eligible criteria:
⦁ living in foster care and/or kinship placement;
⦁ living in a family that received an ongoing cash assistance Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) grant;
⦁ living in a household with a family member who is supported by the income of parents or guardians who received Supplemental Security Income (SSI);
⦁ living in a family that receives Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); or
⦁ lacking a regular fixed adequate nighttime residence and meets the definition of homeless children or unaccompanied youth in the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Age-eligible children entering mid-year will also be welcomed.
HOW TO REGISTER
The following are required documents needed to register your child for Upbring Head Start: the child’s birth certificate, child’s immunizations, proof of residency (gas, water, electric or current lease), and proof of income (for previous 12 months).
To register your child online, visit upbring.com/head-start.
Hours of operation for Upbring Head Start Preschool are 8 a.m.-3 p.m., Monday through Friday.
For more information, visit upbring.org/head-start-preschool/ online or call 512-355-0616 ext. 2729.
