Part II
A Renewed Vision:
Advisory CommitteeRecommendations for a Head Start Program, Panel of Experts
Recommendations
"It is clear that successful programs of this type must be comprehensive, involving activities generally associated with the fields of health, social services and education. Similarly, it is clear that the program must focus on the child and the parent, and that these activities need to be carefully integrated with programs for the school years."
February 19, 1965
The Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion hopes to begin a new chapter in the history of the program by renewing the Head Start vision in a way that will respond more effectively to a changing world.
The Advisory Committee seeks to build upon Head Start's impressive track record of success working with low-income children and families and on the principles that have led to that success: Head Start's comprehensive approach, its commitment to parents, and its community focus.
The Advisory Committee reaffirms the original goal of Head Start which states:
"The overall goal of Head Start is to bring about a greater degree of social competence in children of low-income families. By social competence is meant the child's everyday effectiveness in dealing with both the present environment and later responsibilities."
- Head Start Program Performance Standards
To achieve this goal, Head Start has played and should continue to play multiple roles:
- Head Start provides quality comprehensive child development services that are responsive to the needs of low-income children and families, including health care, developmentally appropriate education, parent involvement, social services, and disability services;
- Head Start helps low-income parents achieve and maintain self-sufficiency and a greater degree of involvement in the education of their children; and
- Head Start serves as a national laboratory for services to young children and families and provides leadership in early childhood and family support services through program innovation, partner ships with other service providers, and efforts to inform both practice and policy.
As the Advisory Committee looks forward to the next century, we envision an expanded and renewed Head Start which serves as a central community institution for low-income children and their families. The Head Start of the 21st century:
- Ensures quality and strives to attain excellence in every local program;
- Responds flexibly to the needs of today's children and families, including those currently unserved; and
- Forges new partnerships at the community, state, and federal levels, renewing and recrafting these partnerships to fit the changes in families, communities, and state and national policy.
The recommendations set forth by the Advisory Committee implement these three broad principles.
1. We must ensure that every Head Start program can deliver on Head Start's vision, by striving for excellence in serving both children and families.
The Advisory Committee believes that the quality of services must be a top priority. We should strive for excellence in all Head Start programs by focusing on staffing and career development, improving the management of local programs, reengineering federal oversight to assure accountability, providing for better facilities, and strengthening the role of research.2. We must expand the number of children served and the scope of services provided in a way that is more responsive to the needs of children and families.The Advisory Committee reaffirms the concept that all children eligible for Head Start should be served with high quality services. Head Start should focus on the needs of children in the context of their families and communities by enhancing family services and increasing parent involvement, assessing needs and planning strategically, reaching children and families currently unserved, promoting full day and full year programs where needed, and expanding services to families with younger children.
3. We must encourage Head Start to forge partnerships with key community and state institutions and programs in early childhood, family support, health, education and mental health, and we must ensure that these partnerships are constantly renewed and recrafted to fit changes in families, communities, and state and national policies. Because no program, no matter how excellent, can go it alone, we must ensure that Head Start joins forces with other providers in the community and state. As a partner, Head Start can not only maximize its own resources, but it can use its leadership to influence other service providers to adopt the core concepts that have made Head Start such a success.
Head Start and public schools should renew commitments to ensure continuity of services by providing developmentally appropriate programs, parent involvement, and supportive services from Head Start through the primary grades.
Head Start should form new partnerships at the state and local level to provide more coordinated services to families; it should play a central role on behalf of low-income children and families in emerging national initiatives, particularly in national service, health reform, education reform, family preservation and support, and welfare reform.