CACOST Head Start and Early Head Start provide center-based services providing early learning, care and enrichment experiences to children in an early care and education setting. Staff members also visit family homes at least twice per year. In the Expectant Mother Program, services are provided as in-home services providing education to the pregnant mother in a private or family-like setting. Head Start and Early Head Start programs support the mental, social, and emotional development of children from birth to age 5. In addition to education services, CACOST Head Start and Early Head Start provide children and their families with health, nutrition, social, and other services. The program services are responsive to each child and family's ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage. Early Head Start serves pregnant women, infants, and toddlers. The program is available to the family until the child turns 3 years old and is ready to transition into Head Start or another appropriate child care setting. The principles of Early Head Start are designed to nurture healthy attachments between parent and child (and child and caregiver), emphasize a strengths-based, relationship-centered approach to services, and encompass the full range of a family's needs from pregnancy through a child's third birthday.
