About Head Start Early Childhood Services
Audubon Area Head Start program has a 16 county service delivery area,
serving over 2,500 children from low-income families and children with
disabilities through five programs administered by this department.
The Head Start program's primary mission is to provide comprehensive
early childhood services for eligible children. All children are
provided a safe, nurturing environment in which they are given the
opportunity to learn and experience success, with additional services
provided to children with special needs. The program ensures that the
children are provided with medical and dental examinations and
nutritious meals. Head Start offers a variety of program options from
part-day classrooms to full-day, full year classrooms. Specific
programs include Early Head Start which offers a home-based option for
very young children.
The agency's Head Start program is one of only twenty-five programs in
the nation to have achieved recognition as a national Program of
Excellence by the National Head Start Association. The program has
maintained this distinction since 2000.
Audubon Area Head Start ensures that children have access to regular screenings, immunizations, well-child visits, dental and nutrition services, healthy meals, and social service programs, like SNAP and WIC.
Audubon Area Head Start believes strongly that parents are their children’s first and most important teachers, and programs engage parents as partners in their children’s learning and development.
Head Start children have better pre-reading, prewriting and vocabulary skills.
Bilingual children in Head Start improved more significantly in terms of receptive vocabulary (words they can understand) than their monolingual peers.