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Early Head Start

Charleston County School District is a community partner in the Berkeley/Dorchester Economic Development Center's Early Head Start grant. The Child and Family Development Center implements the grant and is funded to serve 10 infants, toddlers, and pregnant women. Additionally, six ABC Literacy Voucher infants and toddlers are served in this space. Aftercare is available for all children funded by parent fees and ABC Vouchers.

Early Head Start, an extension of Head Start, is a federally funded community-based program that serves low-income families with infants and toddlers and pregnant women. Its mission is to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, enhance the development of very young children, and promote healthy family functioning.

The framework of the Early Head Start program includes four cornerstones:

Child Development: Programs must support the physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and language development of each child. The staff/child ratio at the Child and Family Development Center's Early Head Start program is one to four. Staff regularly assess, observe and record the progress of their children and provide feedback to parents daily and several times a year during home visits. Parenting education that supports positive parent-child relationships is provided in monthly parent meetings at the Center.

Family Development: The Family Service Associate (FSA) for Early Head Start, Ethel Stormer, maintains close contact with the parents in this program and works with them individually to develop and implement a plan for family growth toward established goals.

Community Building: The FSA and the Center Nurse/Parent Educator, Pat Eckrich, maintain close contact with community resources so that they may build a comprehensive network of services and supports for pregnant women and families with young children. The goal of these collaborative relationships is to increase family access to community supports, make the most efficient use of limited resources, and effect system-wide changes to improve the service delivery system for all families in the community.

Staff Development: The success of the Early Head Start program rests largely on the quality of the staff. The Early Head Start staff at the Center have participated in training offered by the State Department of Education in Creative Curriculum and by First Steps in the Infants and Toddlers Evaluation Rating Scale ( ITERS). Each year selected staff attend the national conference on Birth to Three, ABC Voucher training, and the state Family Literacy Conference. Two of the staff are currently working on their Associates Degrees in Child Development with the help of Center participation in the T.E.A.C.H. Scholarship program.

Early Head Start staff: