Head Start programs promote the school readiness of young children from low-income families by enhancing their cognitive, social, and emotional development.
Head Start and Early Head Start programs support the comprehensive development of children from birth to age 5 — in centers, child care partner locations, and in their own homes — in a variety of ways.
Local Head Start services are delivered by about 1,700 public and private nonprofit and for-profit agencies. Head Start agencies design services for children and families that meet the needs of their local community and follow the Head Start Program Performance Standards. These agencies receive grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), that are administered by the Office of Head Start (OHS). Some local communities and states contribute additional funding to expand Head Start and Early Head Start services to include more children within their communities.
OHS provides oversight to the agencies that operate Head Start programs. OHS also offers federal policy direction and a training and technical assistance system to assist grant recipients in providing comprehensive services to eligible young children and their families.
The Head Start program’s authorizing purpose is to promote the school readiness of young children. School readiness means children are prepared for school, families are supporting their children’s learning, and schools are ready as children transition into kindergarten.
The Head Start program was founded as part of the War on Poverty under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Sargent Shriver led a panel of experts to develop a comprehensive child development program that would help communities meet the needs of disadvantaged preschool children. The result was Project Head Start. Since then, the Head Start program has grown from an eight-week demonstration project in 1965 to include full-day and full-year services and numerous program options. Head Start programs have served over 38 million children and their families in urban and rural areas in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. territories.
The Head Start program was last reauthorized under the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 with several provisions to strengthen Head Start quality. These include alignment of Head Start school readiness goals with state early learning standards, higher qualifications for the Head Start teaching workforce, State Advisory Councils on Early Care and Education in every state, and increased program monitoring, including a review of child outcomes and annual financial audits.
Overall, Head Start programs enrolled 827,572 children in the 2022-2023 program year. This included:
Programs provided services to children in every U.S. state and territory and in over 155 tribal communities, including 111,537 children eligible to receive early intervention or special education services, 27,047 children in foster care, and 51,697 families experiencing homelessness.
