Early Head Start

The Need 

Early Head Start (EHS) is the only federal program focused on prenatal to age three early development and learning for families from income-eligible households, with a proven model that: 

• Prioritizes enrollment of children living in poverty, in foster care, experiencing homelessness and with special needs 
• Provides families with comprehensive child development services and family-centered care and support through center-based and home visiting models 
• Specializes in partnering with families to increase their economic self-sufficiency and well-being 

The EHS model helps families navigate and access the comprehensive, wraparound support they need during the most critical years of their children’s development. 

The Strategy 

This activity provides funding to existing Early Head Start - Child Care Partnership (EHS-CCP) sites that have a successful track record of partnering with licensed child care homes and centers to increase available infant and toddler slots for families. The EHS-CCP model supports formal partnerships between licensed child care programs and Early Head Start programs. This funding ensures that participating child care programs have the resources and support they need to meet rigorous Head Start standards, like higher staff credentials, a research-based curriculum and access to comprehensive services. Ultimately, this activity aims to improve the experiences of infants and toddlers in partner programs by improving standards and resources, as well as creating new, high-quality slots. All of this is done while reducing the cost of care for Colorado families. 

This activity aims to effectively and efficiently extend EHS resources to more early learning settings. Providing families with no-cost, wraparound support focused on early development and learning, such as home visiting, health screenings, enriching child care and parental education helps parents build a strong foundation for their young children’s future. 

Key Outcomes and Learnings 

See below for this activity's impact by each implementation partner. 

As EHS-CCP partners expand, CDEC has recognized the time it takes to onboard new sites that will ultimately serve additional eligible children. In order to better serve and onboard new sites, programs need at least a full year to build these relationships and ensure sites are able to support additional children and their families at the highest level possible.