Youth In Need Receives $1.5 Million for Early Head Start Expansion

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded Youth In Need an Early Head Start Child Care Partnership and Early Head Start Expansion grant. The only recipient in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area and just one of three grants awarded in Missouri, Youth In Need will receive $1.5 million of a $500 million allocation to fund the expansion of its St. Louis City Head Start and Early Head Start program. The grant funds the addition of 120 new infant and toddler slots at nine child care partner sites in St. Louis City. (See below for a list of partner sites.)

“This grant will increase the quality of infant-toddler care throughout St. Louis City and County,” said Melissa Chambers, Vice President of Youth In Need’s St. Louis City Head Start and Early Head Start program. “By offering low-income families with infants and toddlers these wraparound services, we’re supporting families who are working and/or going to school. We’re strengthening the family as parents learn to become their child’s best teacher.”

With this new grant, Youth In Need now will be providing Head Start and Early Head Start services to 1,364 children and their families in St. Louis City and St. Charles, Lincoln, Warren and Montgomery Counties.

The 1994 reauthorization of the Head Start Act established Early Head Start as a program for low-income families with infants and toddlers and pregnant women. Research and practice indicates that the time from conception to age 3 is critical for human development and, for infants and toddlers to develop optimally, they must have healthy beginnings and the continuity of responsive and caring relationships.

Early Head Start programs provide family-centered, full-day, full-year services designed to promote the development of the youngest children; to engage parents in their roles as primary caregivers and teachers of their children; and to help parents move toward self-sufficiency. Early Head Start promotes the school readiness of low-income children in relationship-based learning environments that support children’s growth in language, literacy, mathematics, science, social and emotional functioning, physical development and well-being, and approaches to learning; and through the provision of health, educational, nutritional, social, and family support services.

Partner Sites

Every Child’s Hope

Flance Early Learning Center

Friendly Temple Child Development Center

Hilltop Child Development Center

St. Nicholas Preschool and Daycare

St. Louis Community College - Florissant Valley

St. Louis Transitional Hope House

University City Children’s Center

Urban Sprouts Child Development Center

About Youth In Need

Youth In Need, a proud member of the United Way, is an eastern Missouri regional agency serving more than 17,000 children, teens and families each year with residential group homes, homeless street outreach, education, counseling and support groups, foster care case management and infant, child and family development programs. Youth In Need’s mission is to build on the strengths of children, youth and families so they find safety, hope and success in life. Youth In Need’s programs and services are funded, in part, by its 2015 Children’s Partners, including JM Family Enterprises, Inc. as the Principal Partner. Visit www.youthinneed.org for a complete list of Youth In Need’s Champion, Guardian, Trustee and Patron Partners.