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HEAD START
Reaching Out to the Hispanic Community
Since its inception in 1965, the Head Start program has provided comprehensive developmental services
to millions of low-income, Hispanic preschool children and their families. During the Clinton
Administration, Hispanic enrollment has increased by 70,000 and at a rate nearly twice as fast as non-
Hispanic enrollment. Head Start now reaches approximately 220,000 Hispanic children (183,000
excluding Puerto Rico) each year. Despite these increases, Hispanic children remain under-represented
in Head Start, comprising 23.3 percent of Head Start enrollment (excluding Puerto Rico) compared to
29.8 percent of all low income, pre-school children in the nation. The Head Start program is committed to
identifying and resolving barriers to fully equitable access and ensuring culturally appropriate services.
Head Start is increasing outreach to Hispanics through program expansion.
Head Start has increased by 50% the number of points awarded to expansion grant applicants
who emphasize outreach to under-served populations, such as seasonal farm workers, recent
immigrant families and non-English speaking groups.
Head Start is increasing the number of its grant application reviewers who have
expertise in serving language minority children as part of its ongoing commitment to
ensure cultural diversity on review panels.
Head Start is investing an additional $5 million in FY99 for targeted services to reach
1,000 new children of migrant and seasonal farm workers.
The President's FY 2000 Budget includes $23 million for Migrant Head Start, to
improve quality and reach as many as 2,000 new children.
Through training, technical assistance and monitoring efforts, Head Start will ensure
that local programs consider the needs of all eligible populations.
Head Start is working with and monitoring programs to ensure full utilization of
community assessments to better target outreach, recruitment and enrollment of
under-served populations.
Head Start will provide specialized technical assistance to ten communities where
changing local demographics have resulted in significant under-served populations.
Head Start's recently expanded Training and Technical Assistance Network will
work with local Head Start programs to customize services to better respond to the
needs of under-served populations.
Head Start will fund Hispanic-serving colleges and universities to train teachers.
Beginning early in FY2000, Head Start will make an estimated $750,000 in training
and technical assistance funding available to Hispanic-serving colleges and
universities through a competitive process.
Funding will be used to help more Head Start teachers earn degrees in early
childhood education and to encourage institutions to ensure that their curricula
promote cultural competency among early childhood educators.
However
HEAD START
Reaching Out to the Hispanic Community
Since its inception in 1965, the Head Start program has provided comprehensive developmental
services to millions of low-income, Hispanic preschool children and their families. During the
Clinton Administration, Hispanic enrollment has increased by 70,000 and at a rate nearly twice
as fast as non-Hispanic enrollment. Head Start now reaches over 180,000 Hispanic children each
acknowledget
year. The Head Start program is furthering its longstanding commitment to meeting the needs
problem
of Hispanics through a variety of steps to ensure access and culturally appropriate services.
Head Start is increasing outreach to Hispanics through program expansion.
In the FY1999 expansion process, all applicants were strongly encouraged to reach out to special
under-served populations - including seasonal farmworkers, recent immigrant families and
non-English speaking groups - and the points awarded to applicants for their emphasis on such
outreach rose from 20 to 30 points. Although the awards have not yet been-fully-finalized for
this year, we know that many expansion awards will focus on serving these groups. Moreover,
Head Start has been given the opportunity to serve the children of seasonal farmworkers, and
will provide up to $5 million to reach up to 1,000 additional children of migrant and seasonal
farmworkers in FY 1999. The President's FY 2000 budget inc ludes a $23 million request for
Migrant Head Start that would improve quality and reach as many as 2,000 new children.
Head Start is utilizing training and technical assistance, as well as monitoring, to ensure that
local programs are considering the needs of all eligible populations.
In an Information Memorandum issued in July 1999, Head Start reiterated its policy of assuring
that all eligible families within a grantee's service area are given fair consideration for
enrollment. Grantees were also reminded that they are required to conduct community
assessments in order to base recruitment on areas of need. Head Start plans to work closely with
10 or more communities where changing community demographics have resulted in significant
under-served populations, and notified all grantees that technical assistance is available in this
area. The Head Start Bureau hopes to better track this outreach through increased attention
during monitoring visits and through an assessment of demographic data.
Head Start will fund Hispanic-serving colleges and universities to train teachers.
A new initiative will begin in FY 2000 making training and technical assistance funding
available to Hispanic-serving colleges and universities through a competitive process.
Successful applicants will use these funds to provide training to teachers from nearby Head Start
programs. Not only will this training allow more teachers to receive early childhood degrees, but
Head Start will also encourage these institutions to ensure that their curricula promote cultural
competency among early childhood educators.
Head Start seeks to strengthen the cultural and linguistic capacity of local programs.
Head Start's Training and Technical Assistance (T/TA) Network has been revised and expanded
through a new series of grants to organizations that will work closely with local Head Start
programs and customize services to better respond to varying local needs. T/TA providers
employ the services of staff and consultants who reflect the culture of the Head Start programs in
their areas.
THE HEAD START PROGRAM:
An Overview of Services for Hispanic Children and Families
Head Start is a national program providing comprehensive developmental services to
low-income preschool children and their families. To help children achieve their full
potential, Head Start provides comprehensive health, nutritional, educational, social and
other services. Operating within a set of federal performance standards, Head Start
programs are locally designed and provide services through a variety of program options,
such as center-based and home-based services, adapted to the needs of the children and
families enrolled in the program. Begun in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty, Head
Start has served almost 18 million children over the past 34 years.
Operating with a $4,660,000,000 budget in FY 1999, Head Start will fund services for a
projected 835,000 pre-school children from families with incomes below the poverty line.
Special efforts are made to serve children with disabilities and each local program must
reserve ten percent of its enrollment for such children.
In recognition of the mounting evidence of the importance of the earliest years of life to
children's later development, the Early Head Start program was created in 1995. It
provided child development and family support services to 35,000 pregnant woman, infants
and toddlers in FY 1998 and will expand to reach nearly 39,000 enrollees in FY 1999.
Head Start grants are awarded directly to local private and government agencies by the
Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the Department of Health and
Human Services. In FY 1998, 1513 local grantees plus approximately 600 sub-grantees
provided services in almost 16,000 communities throughout the country. Because Head
Start services are designed and operated at the local level with parent participation, efforts
to support diversity have been an integral part of Head Start since it was created.
The same grantees continue to receive funds from year to year, provided they maintain
high quality services that conform to Head Start Performance Standards. Local programs
receive a comprehensive federal review at least once every three years. The
Administration's recent efforts to assure that all grantees are providing high quality
services has resulted in 100 grants being terminated or relinquished since 1993 and new
sponsors chosen through a competitive process.
Head Start Services for Hispanic Children and Families
The Head Start Bureau seeks to address two critical areas to ensure that Head Start
programming meets the growing needs of Hispanic children and families:
1) Ensuring that Hispanic children have fair and equitable access to Head Start
services; and
2) Ensuring that Head Start services meet the cultural and linguistic needs of
Hispanic children and families.
Access to Head Start Services for Hispanic Children and Families
Since its inception in 1965, Head Start has served millions of Hispanic children across the
nation. In FY 1998, 217,000 of the more than 822,000 children funded by Head Start
were Hispanic. This equals 26.4 percent of Head Start enrollment. Excluding the 32,249
Hispanic children in Puerto Rico, Hispanic children constitute 23.3 percent of total Head
Start enrollment.
The Head Start program has made steady progress over time to extend greater access to
Head Start services to Hispanic families. Over the past decade, Hispanic children have
received an increasingly larger portion of Head Start services. Since FY 1992, Hispanic
enrollment (excluding Puerto Rico) has increased 62% while non-Hispanic enrollment
has increased 27%. In other words, Hispanic enrollment has risen nearly twice as fast as
non-Hispanic enrollment.
Despite these increases, Hispanic children remain underrepresented in Head Start. In
1997, young (3-4 years old), low-income Hispanic children represented 29.8 percent of
all low-income pre-school children in the U.S., compared to 23.3 percent in Head Start
(excluding Puerto Rico). ACF is committed to identifying and resolving barriers to fully
equitable access and service for Hispanic children in Head Start. The Head Start Bureau
is taking steps to increase and improve outreach to Hispanics and other underrepresented
populations.
The following table demonstrates the changes in Head Start enrollment over the last
decade:
1989
431,244
79,487
18.4%
1990
515,899
93,974
18.2%
1991
556,596
101,489
18.2%
1992
592,047
113,817
19.2%
1993
682,597
140,031
20.5%
1994
708,348
145,573
20.6%
1995
718,578
155,556
21.6%
1996
720,333
156,779
21.8%
1997
761,588
174,963
23.0%
1998
789,043
183,824
23.3%
Source: Head Start PIR & Census Bureau
Given the President's goal of providing Head Start services to 1,000,000 children by the
year 2002 and the actions we are taking to improve outreach and expand access, we
anticipate significant increases in participation by Hispanic children and families.
In communities with traditionally large Hispanic populations, Head Start programs
already report substantial percentages of Hispanic enrollees. For example, in Houston and
Miami, Hispanics comprise almost 40% of children served, in New York and San Diego
Hispanics represent approximately 50% of Head Start enrollments and in San Antonio
and Los Angeles, this figure is as high as 75%. Head Start has also demonstrated
flexibility in adapting services to the needs of migrant farmworker families, who are
largely Hispanic, including those who follow the growing season from Florida to Maine
or from Texas to Idaho. Programs meet the critical child care needs of farmworker
families by operating long hours during harvest seasons and serving children from birth
to five years. Some programs themselves migrate, following families as they move "up
stream." In the last ten years, enrollment in Head Start programs for migrant
farmworkers has increased from 18,500 to almost 37,000 children, 95 percent of whom
are Hispanic. FY 1998 funding was $162,204,000.
Hispanics appear to be most underrepresented in Head Start communities where they
have not historically had a significant presence, but where Hispanic populations have
developed more recently. While some programs have adapted more quickly, other
grantees have been slow to change their recruitment strategies, hiring patterns and
services to meet the needs of the new and growing Hispanic populations in their service
areas. Given the limitations of relying on quickly outdated census data to understand how
these demographic shifts compare to existing services in counties, Head Start will initiate
an assessment of community demographics and enrolled populations to identify where
Hispanics and other underserved populations are concentrated.
In order to address these challenges and achieve continued improvements in the
recruitment of underserved populations, Head Start has begun to engage in an array of
activities to ensure fair and equitable access to Head Start services for Hispanic children
and families, including:
Increasing outreach to Hispanics through program expansion;
Providing information and technical assistance to promote recruitment of
Hispanics;
Assuring equitable access and efforts to reach underserved Hispanic
communities following grant terminations and relinquishments; and
Monitoring programs to ensure that grantees consider the needs of new
populations.
Increasing Outreach through Program Expansion
ACF currently provides specific incentives for local Head Start grantees to reach under-
served populations with Head Start expansion funding. Starting in FY 1998, the Head
Start Bureau added language to its competitive expansion announcement encouraging
grantees to focus on under-served populations. This language was strengthened in FY
1999 and the point system for grant awards was revised to put more weight on addressing
the existing need for service, particularly among new or under-served populations.
Specifically, the language in this year's expansion announcement said:
This expansion provides an opportunity for Head Start programs to reach
neighborhoods, communities and groups within their service area that they have
been unable to serve in the past. These may include a variety of special
populations of low-income families, such as seasonal farmworkers, recent
immigrant families, non-English speaking groups or American Indian families
outside of Federal Indian Reservations. All applicants are encouraged to base
their applications on a careful assessment of the community, including
identification of special populations who are not being served by Head Start.
Applicants are then rated on, among other things, the degree to which they have identified
new and under-represented populations, and their strategy for serving these groups. The
points awarded in this area increased by 50% in FY99 and now represent close to a third
of the total points.
ACF will include new language in the FY 2000 expansion announcement that puts
additional emphasis on reaching under-served populations, and will evaluate the
effectiveness of giving greater weight to outreach under-served population when scoring
expansion grant applications. Conversely, an applicant's failure to use the community
needs assessment data or adhere to Head Start regulations will be considered in making
expansion grant decisions. In addition, ACF will increase the number of grant
application reviewers who have expertise in serving language minority children, so that
each set of proposal review teams includes persons with such expertise as appropriate.
Expansion of Head Start for Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Families
In the 1998 reauthorization of Head Start, Congress gave Head Start explicit authority to
serve the children of seasonal farmworkers, and the Bureau is mobilizing to take
advantage of this opportunity through the Migrant Head Start program. Seasonal
farmworkers are typically families that were formerly migrant workers but who decided
to settle in a particular agricultural community. To begin better meeting the needs of
these families, most of whom are not being served by Head Start, this year's Head Start
expansion effort is making available up to $5 million to
increase enrollment of migrant and seasonal farmworker
families by up to 1,000 children. The vast majority of
seasonal farmworkers are Hispanic.
The President's Budget includes a $23 million increase for Migrant Head Start in FY
2000, which, in addition to providing approximately $13 million for cost-of-living and
quality improvement increases, would provide $10 million to serve as many as 2000
additional migrant and seasonal farmworker children.
Providing Information and Technical Assistance to Promote Recruitment of Hispanics
ACF will issue an Information Memorandum by the end of July 1999 that will reiterate
Head Start's policy to assure all eligible families within a grantee's service area are given
fair consideration for enrollment in the Head Start program. Grantees will be reminded
that 45CFR Part 1305.3 requires them to conduct community assessments at least once
every three years. This assessment provides data on "the demographic make up of Head
Start eligible children and families, including their estimated number, geographic location
and ethnic composition." This information is then used by each Head Start grantee to
decide in which part of its service area it will recruit. The need for Head Start services
should be the basis for determining which communities to serve, and how many children
in each community to enroll, not historical enrollment patterns. Grantees will be advised
that they must be sensitive to demographic changes in their service area and that as new
families and children move into their service area, they must also be given consideration
for enrollment.
To assist grantees in this process the Head Start Bureau will work with its training and
technical assistance (T/TA) providers to ensure that they assist grantees who are
experiencing demographic changes within their service area in designing their programs,
when appropriate, so that grantees can better serve new populations in culturally sensitive
programs.
Head Start is initiating an effort, with contractor assistance, to collect demographic data
at the county level which can be used to make judgements about how well grantees are
doing in terms of enrolling families that reflect the overall make-up of their community.
In FY 2000, Head Start will use this data to identify at least ten communities where the
unmet need of emerging populations is most dramatic. ACF will then work closely with
existing and potential grantees and leaders in these communities in order to implement
various outreach and T/TA strategies designed to improve representation of under-
represented children, and, where appropriate, facilitate the participation in Head Start of
local organizations representing these groups. In this way, while generally broadening its
efforts using current known techniques, ACF can also (1) develop and test the
effectiveness of new T/TA and outreach strategies designed to improve the
representation of underserved children into Head Start; (2) actively work with grantees
and local leaders to ensure that the skills, expertise and capabilities of local organizations
in underrepresented communities are effectively utilized; (3) provide focused attention to
the communities with the most dramatic problems; and (4) ultimately, point to these
model communities as examples where the representation of underserved groups has
improved and where that progress has effectively drawn upon the skills of community
groups dedicated to addressing the needs of under-represented populations.
In areas with large under-represented populations, ACF will work with grantees to
identify social service organizations that work with families from these populations. For
smaller Head Start grantees, these organizations can serve as valuable partners in
recruiting from new communities. Where grantees are large enough to have sub-grantees,
they will be encouraged to consider making these organizations delegate agencies based
on their demonstrated potential to run a Head Start program and their commitment to hire
culturally representative staff.
Assuring Equitable Access and Efforts to Reach Under-Served Hispanic Communities
following Grant Terminations and Relinquishments
If Head Start grantees relinquish their grants or are terminated due to an inability to meet
Head Start Performance Standards, an assessment will be made to determine if service
areas should be reconfigured to assure equitable access for all children in the community.
For instance, when the large Denver Head Start grantee was terminated, ACF chose to
split the single Denver grant up into several smaller grants that better met local needs. In
doing so, one of the grantees, Rocky Mountain SER/Jobs for Progress, was specifically
chosen to help address the unmet needs of eligible Hispanic families in the Denver area.
A similar process occurred in Houston, which resulted in new services to Hispanic
children and families and the funding of Avance, Inc. as a Head Start grantee. ACF is
institutionalizing this process of outreach and community needs assessment, including the
needs of Hispanics and other under-served populations, as grant terminations or
relinquishments occur.
Monitoring Programs to Ensure that Grantees Consider the Needs of New Populations
Each Head Start program, as required by law, must be monitored on-site at least once
every three years by a team led by a federal employee. In the Information Memorandum
it plans to issue by July 1999, ACF will include a discussion on the role of the monitoring
process in helping grantees work towards greater equity in reaching under-served
populations. ACF regional staff who monitor Head Start programs will build on current
procedures to create a stronger emphasis on assuring that grantees have conducted
comprehensive community assessments and have used the data
from these assessments to design their Head Start programs.
Grantees will need to be able to clearly explain why they have
chosen to serve the specific communities and populations they have and, conversely, why
they are not serving other communities or populations. Grantees that are not using
community assessment data properly or adhering to Head Start regulations regarding the
selection and recruitment of children will be found "out-of-compliance" and will be
required to implement a corrective action plan. Head Start staff will closely monitor
these grantees to ensure that they are in compliance within one year. This approach will
help assure that all families eligible for Head Start will be given fair and equitable
consideration for enrolling their child in Head Start and that Head Start programs will
increasingly serve families that are representative of the diversity of their service area.
Multiculturalism and Bilingualism in Head Start
Head Start is a community-based program and, from its inception, local Head Start
projects have attempted to mirror the culture of the communities in which they operate.
In 1972, Head Start codified this approach as part of regulations known as the Head Start
Performance Standards, requiring that children's culture be considered in their
individualized education plans, in the staffing of classrooms, and by the involvement of
their parents in developing curricula and program activities.
During the 1970's, Head Start supported the development of bilingual curricula designed
to support cognitive and social growth in children and disseminated these curricula to
programs throughout the country. In 1978 a "Bibliography of Bilingual/Bicultural
Preschool Material for Spanish Speaking Children" was developed for use by programs in
planning and implementing their curricula.
In 1991, furthering efforts to emphasize multicultural programming, Head Start
established "Multicultural Principles for Head Start Programs" in consultation with
program staff, parents and experts in the field. In 1998 these principles were incorporated
into newly revised Head Start Performance Standards. These Standards contain a number
of requirements to assure that the varying needs of different cultures and linguistic groups
are met. All Head Start programs must:
Use linguistically and culturally appropriate early childhood development approaches and
create an environment of acceptance that supports and respects culture, language, and
ethnicity;
Hire teachers who demonstrate an understanding of children's family culture and,
whenever possible, speak the children's language;
Offer nutrition programs that include a variety of foods which consider cultural and
ethnic preferences;
Involve parent's in the development of the program's curriculum, plans for health and
nutrition services and program governance (for example, parents must approve all
hiring of staff);
Communicate with parents in the parent's primary or preferred language or through an
interpreter and;
Give preference to parents in hiring - a practice which has led to the fact that over 30
percent of Head Start's staff are current or former Head Start parents.
Understanding Needs and Capacity Around Multiculturalism and Bilingualism
To determine both the community need and the program effective in this area, ACF
recently conducted The Descriptive Study of Head Start's Bilingual and Multicultural
Program Services, which will be released in the summer of 1999. This study
determined that 140 languages were spoken within the currently enrolled Head Start
population, and that the most common language, after English, is Spanish. The
following are selected findings of this study concerning Hispanic children and
families:
Head Start staff general
serve. There are slightly fewer Hispanic staff than there are Hispanic children.
This is true for all ethnic groups except White. When there are both children and
staff who speak Spanish there is usually one Spanish speaking staff member for
every seven children.
In response to changing
staff; hired parents as translators; used volunteers from the same ethnic group;
opened new centers; modified outreach procedures, including printing recruiting
materials in families' home languages.
A number of additional
parent meetings; providing post-immigration services to families; providing
training to Head Start staff in multicultural sensitivity; developing or selecting
multicultural and bilingual materials for use at home and at school; and bilingual
curriculum development.
A recently completed Study of the Characteristics of Families Served by Head Start
Migrant Programs, which will also be released in the summer of 1999, found that
Head Start has been successful in developing unique
approaches to meeting the needs of migrant families. Migrant
Head Start families are very poor, with larger families often earning no more than 50
percent of federal poverty guidelines. Less than a third of families speak or read
English well and almost half did not complete elementary school. Migrant Head Start
centers are generally staffed with bilingual/bicultural workers with backgrounds
similar to those of migrant families. The study found that staff are responsive to
families' needs and parents report that they are generally very pleased with the care
their children are receiving. The study estimated that Migrant Head Start programs
were serving approximately 28 percent of the eligible migrant children.
The Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is currently piloting methods of
assessing children's language and literacy development, both in one-on-one
assessments and in the classroom context, that are sensitive to the fact that English is
not a first language for some children. Among direct cognitive assessments, FACES
assesses children's vocabulary, book knowledge, pre-writing, numeracy, and letter
recognition at entry into the program, at the end of the program (either one or two
years) and again after a year of kindergarten. Children whose primary language was
Spanish were assessed in Spanish at baseline; if they continued in a Spanish-speaking
program (e.g., in Puerto Rico) they were assessed in Spanish again in the follow-up
assessment. If the program language was primarily English, they were assessed in
English in the follow-up. Cognitive assessments were combined with assessments of
social-emotional development, both by observation and by parent and teacher report,
since such factors also play a role in the child's school readiness. Classroom
assessments of the quality of teacher-child interaction and language learning
opportunities are also related to children's performance on vocabulary measures.
In order to capture the experiences of all families involved in Head Start, FACES
researchers offered families the opportunity to be interviewed in their home language.
Out of individual parent interviews with approximately 3200 families (a nationally
representative sample that included Puerto Rico), 16.9% of the families chose to be
interviewed in Spanish. This study made the encouraging finding that parent
participation in the program did not vary by primary language; participation (i.e.
volunteering in centers, participating in classroom activities) was equal across
English-speaking and non-English speaking families.
Supporting the Transition of Hispanic Children into School
Head Start's new Performance Standards require that special services be provided for
children and parents as children make the transition from Head Start to school. A
national, multi-site evaluation is testing the hypothesis that continuous, comprehensive
Head Start like services will maintain and enhance the early gains achieved by Head Start
children. Demonstration sites in Carpentersville, Illinois, Phoenix, Arizona, Dade
County, Florida and Worcester, Massachusetts are tailoring
these transitional services to the needs of bilingual
Hispanic children. These demonstration programs are
contributing to the development of effective, replicable strategies for
programs nation-wide. In FY 1998, each local Head Start program is receiving
supplemental funds to support transition activities. Funding totals $35,000,000
nationally.
Head Start seeks to ensure that these transitions - from home or child care to Early Head
Start to Head Start to public school - are as smooth as possible for children from every
background. To do this, the Head Start Act requires Head Start grantees to coordinate
with the local educational agency and the schools in which children in Head Start will
enroll. The Head Start Performance Standards build on this requirement, calling for
programs to develop and maintain procedures to support successful transitions. Further,
these Performance Standards outline a series of activities that Head Start programs must
undertake to ensure that parents are prepared to stay involved in their children's education
and serve as their advocates. These transition efforts are tailored to the individual child
and family, and are therefore culturally relevant and take into account a child's special
needs regarding English as a second language.
Providing Training and Technical Assistance to Strengthen Cultural & Linguistic
Capacity
Head Start's Training and Technical Assistance (T/TA) Network is being revised and
expanded through a new series of grants to organizations that will work closely with
local Head Start programs and customize services to better respond to varying local
needs. Under the current contracts, there are 28 providers, 16 of which are public
educational institutions and 12 of which are private non-profits. Of the private non-
profits, one third of the contracts are with Hispanic-owned organizations. T/TA
providers employ the services of staff and consultants who reflect the culture of the
Head Start programs in their areas. T/TA is conducted in Spanish and simultaneous
translation is provided when required.
Head Start materials that are of interest to parents are routinely published in Spanish as
well as English. For example, a video tape entitled "Linking Our Voices" about
parental involvement in Head Start is available in Spanish and has been provided to
all programs.
Providing Teacher Training through Hispanic-Serving Institutions of Higher
Education
A new initiative, focused on Hispanic colleges and universities, will be initiated this year.
ACF will make available funds through a competitive process to institutions of higher
learning that serve significant numbers of Hispanic
students. Successful applicants will be required to use
these funds to provide training to Head Start teachers
from nearby Head Start programs. This training will
eventually result in these teachers receiving degrees in the field of early
childhood education. We will also encourage these institutions to ensure that their
early childhood education curricula foster cultural competency among those who are
being trained to work with young children, in Head Start as well as other early
childhood programs.
Summary of Efforts to Make Head Start Increasingly Inclusive of Hispanics
ACF is committed to ensuring that Hispanic children and families have access to Head
Start services and that these services are culturally and linguistically appropriate.
In order to increase enrollment of Hispanic children, the Head Start Bureau is taking
concrete steps to boost outreach to underserved Hispanic communities. The Bureau is
providing incentives to grantees to use expansion money to reach out to under-served
populations (including a special allocation for outreach to migrant and seasonal
farmworkers) and is working with Hispanic organizations to generate applications for
funding from Hispanic groups when opportunities arise. The Bureau is also re-
emphasizing the importance of a meaningful community needs assessment process
through an upcoming Information Memorandum to grantees, additional training and
technical assistance, and a stronger emphasis on this component during program
monitoring. The Bureau will target special training and technical assistance to
communities where the unmet need of emerging populations and traditionally under-
represented groups is most dramatic. Finally, the Bureau is setting a new standard using
grants that have been terminated or relinquished as opportunities to reconfigure the
grantees in a local area to reflect changing community needs; this will allow ACF to seek
out Hispanic leadership and representation in previously under-served communities.
Head Start has a strong record of providing multicultural and bilingual services and plans
to take steps to build off these strengths. Head Start will continue to support and initiate
research that recognizes diversity and seeks to answer critical questions about the
program's capacity to meet cultural or linguistic needs. The Bureau will also seek to use
current demonstration projects focusing on the needs of Hispanic children as they
transition from the Head Start program to school to help programs better address these
needs. Through a revised and expanded series of training and technical assistance grants,
programs will be assisted in strengthening their multicultural and bilingual services.
Finally, the Bureau will create a new initiative that will provide Hispanic-serving colleges
and universities with special funding to provide early childhood training and education to
Head Start teachers.
This array of activities will not only lead to more and better services for Hispanic
children and families, but in doing so, it will create an even stronger, more inclusive Head
Start program as we move into the next century.
Revised July 9, 1999
THE HEAD START PROGRAM:
Steps to Improve Access for Under-served Populations
Since its inception in 1965 as a summer program launched during President Lyndon B. Johnson's
"War on Poverty," Head Start has helped more than 16 million children and their families. Head
Start was designed to help break the cycle of poverty by providing preschool children with a
program to meet their emotional, educational, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs.
The idea was that, with a little help-a head start-children from even the most disadvantaged
families could begin elementary school at the same level as their more advantaged peers.
In the last three decades, the United States population has undergone some dramatic
demographic changes yielding a far more culturally diverse population. Children in Head Start
now come from scores of different countries and speak approximately 140 different languages.
While Head Start has always been committed to providing culturally relevant services to children
and families from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, these changing national demographics mean
that Head Start must continue to strengthen efforts to encourage the participation of new
populations and tailor programs to meet their unique needs.
1. Give greater priority to under-served groups in the expansion grant process.
ACF currently provides specific incentives for local Head Start grantees to reach under-served
populations with Head Start expansion funding. Starting in FY 1998, the Head Start Bureau
added language to its competitive expansion announcement encouraging grantèes to focus on
under-served populations. This language was strengthened in FY 1999 and the point system for
grant awards was revised to put more weight on addressing the existing need for service,
particularly among new or under-served populations. Specifically, the language in this year's
expansion announcement said:
This expansion provides an opportunity for Head Start programs to
reach neighborhoods, communities and groups within their service
area that they have been unable to serve in the past. These may
include a variety of special populations of low-income families, such
as seasonal farmworkers, recent immigrant families, non-English
speaking groups or American Indian families outside of Federal
Indian Reservations. All applicants are encouraged to base their
applications on a careful assessment of the community, including
identification of special populations who are not being served by
Head Start.
Applicants are then rated on, among other things, the degree to which they have identified new
and under-represented populations, and their strategy for serving these groups. The points
awarded in this area increased by 50% in FY99 and now represent close to a third of the total
points.
Next Step: ACF will include new language in the FY 2000 expansion announcement that puts
additional emphasis on reaching under-served populations, and will evaluate the effectiveness of
giving greater weight to outreach under-served population when scoring expansion grant
applications. Conversely, an applicant's failure to use the community needs assessment data or
adhere to Head Start regulations will be considered in making expansion grant decisions. In
addition, ACF will increase the number of grant application reviewers who have expertise in
serving language minority children, so that each set of proposal review teams includes persons
with such expertise as appropriate.
2. Increase funding to serve the children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers.
In the 1998 reauthorization of Head Start, Congress gave Head Start explicit authority to serve
the children of seasonal farmworkers, and the Bureau is mobilizing to take advantage of this
opportunity through the Migrant Head Start program. Seasonal farmworkers are typically
families that were formerly migrant workers but who decided to settle in a particular agricultural
community. To begin better meeting the needs of these families, most of whom are not being
served by Head Start, this year's Head Start expansion effort is making available up to $5 million
to increase enrollment of migrant and seasonal farmworker families by up to 1,000 children. The
vast majority of seasonal farmworkers are Hispanic, the largest under-served population in Head
Start.
Next Step: The President's Budget includes a $23 million increase for Migrant Head Start in FY
2000, which, in addition to providing approximately $13 million for cost-of-living and quality
improvement increases, would provide $10 million to serve as many as 2000 additional migrant
and seasonal farmworker children.
3. Provide information, training, and technical assistance to promote the recruitment of
children and families from under-represented populations, and identify culturally appropriate
social service organizations in the area to serve them.
Head Start's training and technical assistance network employs consultants with expertise in the
field of conducting community assessments and using the data
collected from these assessments to design programs that most
effectively serve all families in the community. Grantees who need assistance conducting a
thorough and accurate community assessment, or who have not appropriately used the
assessment to design their program, have access to these consultants who are able to help
programs better serve all members of the community with culturally relevant and responsive
programs.
Next Step: ACF will issue an Information Memorandum by the end of July 1999 that will
reiterate Head Start's policy to assure all eligible families within a grantee's service area are
given fair consideration for enrollment in the Head Start program. Grantees will be reminded
that 45CFR Part 1305.3 requires them to conduct community assessments at least once every
three years. This assessment provides data on "the demographic make up of Head Start eligible
children and families, including their estimated number, geographic location and ethnic
composition." This information is then used by each Head Start grantee to decide in which part
of its service area it will recruit. The need for Head Start services should be the basis for
determining which communities to serve, and how many children in each community to enroll,
not historical enrollment patterns. Grantees will be advised that they must be sensitive to
demographic changes in their service area and that as new families and children move into their
service area, they must also be given consideration for enrollment.
Next Step: Head Start is initiating an effort, with contractor assistance, to collect demographic
data at the county level which can be used to make judgements about how well grantees are
doing in terms of enrolling families that reflect the overall make-up of their community. Once
this data collection is complete, Head Start will, as discussed below, focus on working with
grantees that seem to be having the most difficulty serving all the populations of their
communities.
Next Step: To assist grantees in this process the Head Start Bureau will work with its training and
technical assistance (T/TA) providers to ensure that they assist grantees who are experiencing
demographic changes within their service area in designing their programs, when appropriate, so
that grantees can better serve new populations in culturally sensitive programs. In FY 2000,
ACF will, using the data collected through the process discussed above, identify at least ten
communities where the unmet need of emerging populations is most dramatic. ACF will then
work closely with existing and potential grantees and leaders in these communities in order to
implement various outreach and T/TA strategies designed to improve representation of under-
represented children, and, where appropriate, facilitate the participation in Head Start of local
organizations representing these groups. In this way, while generally broadening its efforts using
current techniques, ACF can also (1) develop and test the effectiveness of new T/TA and
outreach strategies designed to improve the representation of underserved children into Head
Start; (2) actively work with grantees and local leaders to ensure that the skills, expertise and
capabilities of local organizations in underrepresented communities are effectively utilized; (3)
provide focused attention to the communities with the most dramatic problems; and (4)
ultimately, point to these model communities as examples where the representation of
underserved groups has improved and where that progress has effectively drawn upon the skills
of community groups dedicated to addressing the needs of under-represented populations.
In areas with large under-represented populations, ACF will work with grantees to identify social
service organizations that work with families from these populations. For smaller Head Start
grantees, these organizations can serve as valuable partners in recruiting from new communities.
Where grantees are large enough to have sub-grantees, they will be encouraged to consider
making these organizations delegate agencies based on their demonstrated potential to run a
Head Start program and their commitment to hire culturally representative staff.
4. Assure equitable access and efforts to reach under-served communities following grant
terminations and relinquishments.
If Head Start grantees relinquish their grants or are terminated due to an inability to meet Head
Start Performance Standards, an assessment will be made to determine if service areas should be
reconfigured to assure equitable access for all children in the community. For instance, when the
large Denver Head Start grantee was terminated, ACF chose to split the single Denver grant up
into several smaller grants that better met local needs. In doing so, one of the grantees, Rocky
Mountain SER/Jobs for Progress, was specifically chosen to help address the unmet needs of
eligible Hispanic families in the Denver area. A similar process occurred in Houston, which
resulted in new services to Hispanic children and families and the funding of Avance, Inc. as a
Head Start grantee.
Next Step: ACF is institutionalizing this process of outreach and community needs assessment,
including the needs of underserved populations, as grant terminations or relinquishments occur.
5. Reinforce monitoring to ensure that grantees serve new and under-represented populations.
Each Head Start program, as required by law, must be monitored, on-site, at least once every
three years by a team led by a federal employee.
Next Step: In the Information Memorandum it plans to issue by July 1999, ACF will include a
discussion on the role of the monitoring process in helping grantees work towards greater equity
in reaching under-served populations. ACF regional staff who monitor Head Start programs will
build on current procedures to create a stronger emphasis on assuring that grantees have
conducted comprehensive community assessments and have used the data from these
assessments to design their Head Start programs. Grantees will need to be able to clearly explain
why they have chosen to serve the specific communities and populations they have and,
conversely, why they are not serving other communities or populations. Grantees that are not
using community assessment data properly or adhering to Head Start regulations regarding the
selection and recruitment of children will be found "out-of-compliance" and will be required to
implement a corrective action plan. Head Start staff will closely monitor these grantees to ensure
that they are in compliance within one year. This approach will help assure that all families
eligible for Head Start will be given fair and equitable consideration for enrolling their child in
Head Start and that Head Start programs will increasingly serve families that are representative
of the diversity of their service area.
6. Continue to track and provide updates on outreach to under-served communities.
Head Start will issue a report by the end of FY 2000, detailing its efforts and accomplishments in
extending access to under-represented populations.