Head Start - Early Head Start

Getting Young Children and Their Families Ready for School and Ready for Life!

The mission of Head Start is to provide opportunities for young children, foster children and families to enhance life skills and encourage responsive relationships. The NCAP Head Start Program serves children ages 0 to 5 years, their families, and pregnant women who meet the program’s qualifications.

Northwest Community Action Partnership has been providing comprehensive Head Start preschool programs for over 43 years in Dawes, Box Butte, Sheridan, and Cherry counties. The NCAP Head Start program serves over 250 children and their families through center-based or home-based options every year.

Head Start services are free of any charge, and participation of children and their families are voluntary. We are fully funded by the Department of Health and Human Services with a 20% non-federal match.

Early Childhood & Family Development

Head Start promotes early childhood and family development by:

• Promoting school readiness. Social and cognitive skills are enhanced by providing education health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and their families.
• Working to achieve healthy prenatal outcomes for women.
• Enhancing the development of a young child.
• Strengthening the parent-child bond while improving family relations.
• Engaging parents in their children’s learning and helping them in make progress towards their educational, literacy and employment goals. Significant emphasis is placed on involving parents in the administration of local Head Start programs.

Information & Resources

Head Start provides information and resources in the following areas:

• Child development
• Disabilities
• Mental Health
• Health and Nutrition
• Prenatal Health
• Dental, Physical, Vision, Hearing and Lead Screenings
• Parent and Family development
• Transportation

What to expect in the enrollment process

We will verify the income of parents or guardians, the age of the enrolling child, and the child’s immunization records.

In order to provide the optimum level of service, we will also need to determine such areas of consideration as:

• Disabilities with emotional and/or physical concerns
• Language or isolation barriers
• Other social services or health concerns.

Head Start offers many volunteer opportunities.

Volunteers are an important part of our Head Start program. We have a great need for volunteers in a number of areas including:

• Helping in a classroom full of 3 & 4- year old children
• Providing training/ professional development opportunities or space for staff and parents
• Cleaning, painting, and helping with the general repair of the facilities
• Sharing a special talent such as music, karate, juggling, coloring, reading to children, etc.
• Donating funds or items of need for our program such as books, paper, etc.

Your volunteer time can qualify as a monetary donation!

In addition to helping our program run more smoothly, each volunteer’s contribution of times is assigned a dollar value and counted as a donation. In order for our program to qualify for the federal grant which covers 80% of our operating budget, Head Start is required to collect donations totaling 20% of our budget. Donations of volunteer time help us meet this requirement.

How do I get involved? To find out more about becoming a Head Start volunteer, please contact any of the Center Locations or Central Office in Chadron at 270 Pine St.

Call Head Start to inquire today 308-432-3393
or Apply Online