Developing and maintaining up-to-date policies and procedures is essential for any Head Start/Early Head Start program. It is important because they are foundational to a program’s operation and they provide a guide for staff – new and experienced – that helps to ensure clarity and consistency in program implementation.

Environmental risks can range from natural disasters and climate change to pollution and air quality. These factors play an important role in the overall health and wellbeing of communities and can vary widely across geographic areas. Certain environmental health factors – like pollution and unsafe drinking water – disproportionately impact low-income communities, and children and pregnant women are at particularly high risk of health problems.

Head Start annual reporting is established in Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS), Section §1302.102(d)(2), and requires programs to include a summary of a program’s most recent community assessment. The report must also comply with the Head Start Act. In this blog post, we’ll explore the intersection of HSPPS and the Act and how your program can use the annual report as an opportunity to show need across the service area and within your program.

The American Community Survey (ACS) is an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that provides vital information to help determine how more than $675 billion in federal and state funds are distributed each year. On March 17, 2022, the Census Bureau released the 2016-2020 ACS 5-Year Estimates, after multiple delays due to quality and response issues for 2020 data collection. This data, which many agencies rely on for annual community assessments, is now available at data.census.gov.

The much-anticipated 2020 U.S. Census data is scheduled to be released Thursday, March 17. The census is conducted once every ten years and is designed to count every resident in the United States. Census data is used many ways; for example, to determine the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, adjust electoral districts, and inform the allocation of federal funding.

Community assessment is foundational to program planning, providing data and information that helps programs to meet children and families’ needs. There are a wide range of resources that programs may tap into to build a comprehensive community assessment or draw from for an annual update.

Here, we share three tools that allow users to explore data at the national, state, and local levels. While the content in each tool is different – focusing on housing, food insecurity, and substance misuse – the functionality is very similar. Start broad and drill down to local data that show how needs vary from one community to the next.

In Head Start/Early Head Start, a coordinated approach to program planning and management supports the provision of high-quality services for children and families. Each year, programs implement a variety of required activities to guide programmatic and fiscal operations. The timing of these activities, and how they build upon each other, can impact their effectiveness and value they bring to the program.

The 2022 National Head Start Association (NHSA) Winter Leadership Institute took place virtually, January 24-27, 2022. As customary for NHSA conferences, representatives from the Office of Head Start (OHS) held a session to share updates from the administration and OHS. Here, we provide some of the important federal funding and policy updates that were shared by OHS leaders.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) just announced an exciting grant opportunity for agencies to implement and enhance family engagement activities in their state. The Application for New Grants Under the Statewide Family Engagement Centers Program opened for competition on December 20, 2021 and applications are due February 17, 2022.

As 2021 comes to a close, we thank you for the critical role your programs play in serving children and families. We have enjoyed getting to know programs through our work together, at conferences, and in conversations. And, we appreciate you reading our blog!

2021 was a year of opportunities and challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the importance of child care and also the challenges faced by the industry. The challenges the Head Start community faced in 2021, and will continue to face in 2022, are truly unprecedented. In fact, the Office of Head Start reports greater need than ever among children and families.