The Family Focus Guide helps families and individuals in and around the Fayetteville area find resources in our community.
If you have a service-focused organization that serves families in the Fayetteville, Cumberland County area and would like to be listed, please email us at [email protected].
Head Start is a federal matching grant program that was initiated in the mid-1960s as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty." The mission of the Head Start program is to "promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families" (ACF, 2008). For eligible low-income children, Head Start provides free access to preschools, which are provided primarily in centers and are expected to conform to a specific set of guidelines laid out in the Head Start Program Performance Standards and other regulations (45 CFR 1301-1311, 2006). In addition to early childhood education, Head Start incorporates parental involvement and facilitates access to health care services; most Head Start programs also provide at least one meal to children during the day. The program requirements are flexible to meet the needs of the community, allowing individual programs to determine such program characteristics as the number of hours per day, or months per year, that a participation must attend; curriculum; teacher salary; and mode of delivery (in a home, a school, or a center)
