Supporting Women and Children
How Early Head Start promotes maternal and early childhood health
“I didn’t have a lot of resources to turn to. A family member told me about Head Start, they said, ‘You need to try this program and you need structure for your kids.’ Now, I couldn’t see it any other way. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have Head Start… It helped me to become a better parent.”
— Stephanie, Head Start parent
After she went through the upheaval of experiencing a divorce, Head Start helped restore structure into the life of Stephanie, a young mother of two girls at Albina Head Start in Portland, Oregon. Stephanie remarked, “We started off with a home-based program and I enjoyed that. I wasn’t working, I was living alone, and for someone to come into the comfort of my home and talk to me about how I am doing and look after my children, it was really beneficial.”
Another mother from Cleveland, Ohio, named India said, “My life would be totally different if Head Start had not come into my life. When I got diagnosed with MS last year, the Head Start family engulfed me and my son. They built me up. When I was depressed, they lifted me up — they were a beacon of light for me and my family.”
“Without Head Start, I don’t know where I could have been,” India added. Now, she works as a family advocate, serving as a Policy Council Member and a Parent Ambassador at her program.
Stephanie and India’s experience are very typical for Head Start families. Head Start was created to support not only children but their caregivers as well. Head Start and Early Head Start recognize the importance of strengthening and supporting women to empower them, their children, their families, and their communities.
During Women’s History Month — and all year long — NHSA is celebrating the Head Start community’s commitment to supporting the millions of women who have influenced the lives of children and families by caring, teaching, supporting, nurturing, valuing, and prioritizing children — starting even before their birth.
How Early Head Start Supports Women and Families
Early childhood is one of the most vital times for development in a person’s life. Research demonstrates that the earlier we provide healthy care and support to our children, the more likely they are to achieve healthy outcomes and succeed in life. So to prioritize early childhood means we must also prioritize prenatal care for mothers.
Early Head Start was created with this purpose in mind. In 1995, the first Early Head Start grants were administered to support low-income children under 3, pregnant women, and their families. Having a healthy pregnancy and access to quality prenatal care is one of the best ways to promote a healthy birth and early childhood.
When pregnant women enroll in Early Head Start services, they are immediately connected with continuous, accessible health care and access to comprehensive services that provide, at a minimum, “nutritional counseling, food assistance, oral health care, mental health services, substance use prevention and treatment, and emergency shelter or transitional housing in cases of domestic violence,” according to the standards guiding Head Start programs. These services provide the foundation of health for children before they are born and while their parents are transitioning into motherhood and fatherhood.
Early Head Start also provides prenatal and postpartum services, information, and education to pregnant women, fathers, partners, or other caregivers to ensure all aspects of the child’s educational components cover critical topics like nutrition, fetal development, substance use risks, labor and delivery, postpartum recovery, parental depression, infant care, and safe sleep practices, and the benefits of breastfeeding.
These parental and family support services do not stop after a child is born. Early Head Start and Head Start (which serves children from ages 3–5), provides continuous services and supports to women and families that address their individual needs, whether that be physical health, mental health, emotional well-being, nurturing and responsive caregiving, and family engagement during pregnancy and early childhood.
Let’s reach more pregnant women
Early Head Start works to improve the lives of women and mothers around the nation. In the 2017–2018 program year, Early Head Start programs served 15,474 pregnant women. About 18% of these women were enrolled during their first trimester of pregnancy, 40% during the second, and 42% during the third, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
But could we reach more mothers and pregnant women in need? NHSA believes we could. That’s why we advocate for greater federal support for Early Head Start programs so they can enroll more eligible pregnant women and ensure more children and families get the care they need as early as possible.
How you can celebrate the women in your life?
You can help NHSA raise awareness about the importance of women’s health and prenatal care and how providing healthy and supportive care for women impacts the health and development outcomes of children at birth and in early childhood. Contribute to the Dollar per Child Campaign, which supports NHSA’s work persuading lawmakers in Washington to expand Early Head Start and Head Start services to all vulnerable children and families.
