All Centers are closed today, September 15, 2021, due to inclement weather.
We believe that when parents are supported by a high-quality early childhood program that provides access to comprehensive services when needed, they are better able to raise successful, happy, and healthy children.
We believe that an environment that values and respects each family’s culture and strengths and supports and empowers families in areas of need will produce children and families that are resilient, self-sufficient, and successful.
We believe that our role is to provide a safe, healthy, nurturing environment in which each child can develop at their own pace, and be supported by developmentally appropriate materials and activities. We aim to empower parents and provide continued support as they fulfill their role as their child’s primary and most important teachers.
Head Start is a national program administered through the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Since its inception, the purpose of Head Start has been to promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of education, health, nutritional, social, and other comprehensive services to enrolled children and families. We serve over 1 million children and their families annually in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and US territories, and we have served over 36 million children since our programs began.
In 1965, the Office of Economic Opportunity launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program. Head Start was part of the war on poverty, which embodied a basic belief in education as the solution to poverty. Head Start was designed to help break the “cycle of poverty” by serving preschool children of low-income families.
In 1969, Head Start was transferred from the Office of Economic Opportunity to the Office of Child Development in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Head Start serves many American Indian, migrant farm worker, urban and rural children, and families in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Pacific Insular Areas. In the mid-1990s, Early Head Start services for ages birth to 3 years olds were formalized and expanded.
Since its incorporation in 1985, Suwannee Valley 4Cs has proudly served children and their families through our programs in Columbia, Hamilton, Lafayette, and Suwannee counties in North Central Florida.
1995
The first Early Head Start grants were awarded, serving low-income women and children ages birth-3 years old.
1998
The Head Start program was reauthorized to expand to full-day and full-year services.
Our Board of Director’s responsibilities include legal and fiscal activities, program planning, organization, development, evaluation, policy creation, human resources management, regulation compliance, recruitment, selection, enrollment, oversight of the Policy Council, review of annual self-assessment, and an ongoing commitment to implementing the highest quality program possible.
