Head Start program honored nationally
A new initiative by the Head Start/Early Head Start program of the Private Industry Council of Westmoreland/Fayette Inc. has earned them recognition as a National Center of Excellence In Early Childhood. The Department of Health and Human Services announced this week that PIC is among only 10 agencies nationally to receive the recognition, which includes funding of $200,000 per year for five years.
Sandra Hall, director of Head Start/Early Head Start/Pre-K Counts for PIC, said funding will support the new project, Social Emotional Early Development Success, SEEDS, which will involve training and professional development for practitioners to assist children ages birth to 8 years of age with a curriculum for preventing, reducing and treating aggression and other inappropriate behaviors by promoting emotional, social and academic competence.
“It encompasses training for practitioners in private preschools, head start child care facilities, parochial schools and public schools,” Hall said. “It’s also going to be at the family level with parent training.”
Hall said the organization developed the program based on a similar national initiative called CARES, a research project that PIC was involved with.
“Ultimately, with our program, our goal is to increase awareness and give people the tools they need to help children who are making transitions into their new settings,” Hall said.
In order to qualify to compete for the national award, applicants needed to first be nominated by the governor of their state. Gov. Edward Rendell nominated Head Start/Early Head Start of Fayette County to compete at the national level for the National Centers of Excellence program. This nomination, on behalf of Pennsylvania, was awarded to Head Start/Early Head Start of Fayette County on the basis of their innovative practices in delivering early education services as well as the ongoing partnership with the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) in the required areas of quality improvement, sound partnerships, comprehensive programming, staff competency, and participation in collaborative systems oversight through the Early Learning Council and its various committees.
Tim Yurcisin, president of the Private Industry Council, said he was proud when PIC was one out of five Head Start agencies, out of 75, in the state to be nominated.
“You can only imagine the pride that we now feel to be one of the 10 best Head Start programs in the entire country,” Yurcisin said. “This award is not just about the Private Industry Council, but about all the great work that is done in early childhood education throughout Fayette County.”
Hall said parental involvement will be a vital piece in the project.
“Once parents are trained, they will lead the parent trainings, so it will be parents training parents,” she said.
The grant period for the funding begins today, and Hall said the agency will now begin to hire the appropriate staff and purchase the curriculums needed. Once staff is trained, the agency will ask for participants by sending out invitations seeking applicants for the project.
“My fear is not that we won’t have enough participants. It’s that we won’t have enough funding to involve everyone who wants to be involve in his great project,” Hall said. “There will be a tremendous amount of collaboration that comes with the project that will be inclusive of county agencies such as Fayette County Behavioral Health Administration and the Fayette County Collaborative for Families, schools districts, child care facilities and private preschools.”
Costs associated with participating in the program will be completely covered by the grant, said Hall, who noted that the sustainability of the program once the five-year funding has ended will rely on a building process of training.
“The hope is that we train enough staff in enough early childhood facilities that they can then train others, who will train others,” she said. “Then the parents are building a support base because they are then going to train other parents.”
Hall noted that the project will begin at a local level with plans to extend first to the state level and eventually to the national level.
PIC is planning a public open house celebration for some time in November, but details have not been finalized.
“Everything is still just very early on and with just having found out that we received this, we are still taking it in,” Hall said. “This is the first time that this grant has been offered on a federal level, so it’s groundbreaking.”