THOMPSON ANNOUNCES MORE THAN $1.3 MILLION FOR CHILD START, INC.

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-5) today announced a $1,303,750 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grant for Child Start, Inc. The grant will be used to fund Child Care Partnerships between Child Start, Inc. and local private child care centers. These partnerships provide high quality child care and early learning services to young children from low-income families.

“All children, no matter who they are or where they’re from, deserve a quality education,” said Thompson. “Through their Child Care Partnerships, Child Start Inc. helps ensure that the youngest children in our community have the opportunity to learn and grow. It is critical for our children to have a solid early educational foundation, one that promotes strong, healthy development. This grant funding will help Child Start, Inc. continue their terrific work in our community, and I am proud to support them.”

“We are thrilled to be funded for a second year to provide services through the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership grant,” said Debbie Peralez, Executive Director of Child Start, Inc. “This funding allows Child Start to partner with state funded, private child care centers and family child care providers to improve services for our youngest children. Many of the families participating in this program are struggling with poverty while trying to work or go to school and make sure their child is in a quality child care setting. This funding supports providers in attaining education and training and assists with enhancing their environments. The Early Head Start model focuses on smaller group size and nurturing relationships between the child, parents and caregiver to support early brain development, preventative health measures and healthy family relationships, leading to improved outcomes for children.”

Child Start, Inc. has supported children and families in Napa County since 1965, and in Solano County since 1996. The program currently serves nearly 900 preschool children and over 170 infants and toddlers, and provides home visiting services to pregnant women.

Head Start is a federal program that promotes school readiness for children under age 5 from low-income families by enhancing their cognitive, social and emotional development. Head Start programs provide comprehensive services to enrolled children and their families, which include health, nutrition, social services and other services determined to be necessary by family needs assessments, in addition to education and cognitive development services.

For every dollar spent on Head Start, our country realizes almost nine dollars in benefits through participants’ increased earnings, decreased welfare dependence and other factors.

Head Start was founded as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty in 1965. Since then, Head Start has grown from an eight-week demonstration project to include full day/year services and numerous program options. Head Start has served over 31 million children and their families in urban and rural areas in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories.

The reauthorization of the Head Start Act in 1994 made it possible to establish Early Head Start as a program to serve infants and toddlers under the age of 3 and pregnant women. Early Head Start provides early, continuous, intensive and comprehensive child development and family support services to low-income infants, toddlers, pregnant women and their families.