Originally Posted by Unregistered:
Hello i'm A Family case worker for the Early Head Start Child Care Partnership Program in Buffalo N.Y. and I love the New EHS-CCPP. In our defense i will say that it depends on your passion for the kids. If you truly want to raise your standers then i would suggest partnering with head start. We will pay the difference so you can raise the salary of your teachers, because most family, centers and /or group daycare are only paying their staff minimum wage, this will also allow you to hire better teachers (all headstart teacher must be certified in child care and we will pay for them to get that accreditation if they do not have it). We will rehabilitate your facility so it's safer and more child friendly(building a gate in the back yard, redoing your floor, laying carpet, fixing and supplying appliances, putting soft rubbery material out side where most would have the kids playing on concrete). Our goal is to partner with daycares in poverty stricken area codes. So yes we service families that are in need. As a Family Partner i will do home-visits with the family and walk them though completing there goals such as getting there GED going back to college, starting there own business, or getting a better job. Oh yeah...If the parent loses there subsidy because they received a better job then Headstart will cover the child-care for the rest of the year. Each child in your center will receive constant developmental screenings and if they are not developed at the appropriate level then specialist will come out and work with them one on one. Your curriculum will also have to change. That means no more leaving babies sitting in high chairs and walkers and cribs all day. No more Television either, unless it apart of the curriculum. That means no more sitting in front of the TV watching frozen, Disney cartoons or PBS either. Teacher are going to have to get on the floor with the babies and engage them 100% of the time. The curriculum will allow the kids to receive more physical action and human engagement. Oh yeah did i mention that we supply diapers and wipes (formula, if your center does not participate in the food program). We will supply you with cubbies, toys and puppets and other equipment that goes along with our curriculum. We will even install a second sink seeing as though that many Daycares are washing, hand changing diapers, washing dishes and preparing food out of the same sink. I have visited some daycare where they keep the kids in the basement and the basement actually looks like a basement. While the owners lives upstart in luxury in the rest of the home. Yes there is more paper work, but most of the paperwork is some thing that should have been done before even partnering with headstart. like taking attendance, health records, assessments, inspections, daily progress notes and other things that come with child care.
Are you SERIOUS? This run on paragraph sounds like something a third grader would write. The way you denigrate family child care is laughable. I get kids from head start EVERY SINGLE YEAR after the parents realize that the FREE care is mediocre, at best. You get what you pay for.
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
Way to bash home daycares. 
As an EX employee of Head Start, I find VERY little of what you said to be true.
As a matter of fact, my standards in my own independently operated family child care are MUCH higher than the standards followed by Head Start.
Head Start is a multi-billion dollar failure that does nothing more than a good quality in home family child care provider can do. Just ask the Federal government who conducted the study itself. 
http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...nally-released
multi-billion dollar failure--- AMEN! It would be BETTER if the government put funding into sliding scale child care subsidies so that parents could chose their own high quality program.
Originally Posted by Leigh:
I had a 3.5 year old come to me from head start this spring. She was MILES behind my daycare kids in learning. Couldn't count to 10, didn't know ABC's, spoke in baby talk (her needs to go pee pee). The three's at my place are working on phonics and sight words, while the head start kid couldn't identify more than 6 letters. Head Start CLAIMED that she knew these things, but she did not. Formal early education like Head Start is not developmentally appropriate, in my opinion, and the Head Start kids I have seen are behind academically and socially.
Also, my kids' caregiver can use words like STANDARDS and THEIR and THERE appropriately.
I have had the same experiences. Every child that has come from local UPK or head start is terribly behind.
Originally Posted by Play Care:
Right!
I find it amusing that the poster then goes on to mention the *basic* New York licensing standards, nothing really "extra" except taxpayer money to supply things no provider should be allowed to start without anyway (and there are grants either through CCR&R or CSEA) As a licensed in home, I already have to have material under my play set (which I did before it was mandated) I already have to have age appropriate curriculum (which, as a former preschool teacher I had from day 1) TV has never been condoned by licensing and the new regs go further with it (I've been screen free since day 1, so not an issue for me) I don't take infants but I've been pretty vocal about my feelings on "container babies" (and I'm fairly sure walkers aren't permitted by licensing) I already take attendance, do daily health checks, drills, etc etc etc My assistant has a BA and taught Kindegarten ( higher education level than Head Start asst). I pay over minimum wage (and I know our Head Start has assistants making NY min wage because I've read the job advertisments) my neighbor is a lead teacher at Head Start and maybe clear 30,000 a year. I easily double that. Why would I want to go from being a business owner who sets my own policies, hours, days off to become a Head Start employee? What a step backwards.
I see *nothing* that Head Start could offer that I don't already have and provide for my families. But most of my clients are educated professionals who wouldn't want their kids involved with Head Start anyway. As one mom said to me "I wouldn't send my DOG to head start" 
They chose an in home provider because they want an in home service. And frankly many of them are becoming more and more disgusted with licensing and choosing to use unlicenesed care or families over licensed as it is.
I couldn't have been licensed without the things she listed.