Approaches to Providing Comprehensive Services in Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships

In 2014, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) distributed 250 grants across states and localities in the United States and its territories to establish Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships (EHS-CCPs) to expand access to high-quality child care. A cornerstone of Early Head Start (EHS) is the provision of comprehensive services. Comprehensive services refer to addressing the needs of infants and toddlers in ways that go beyond the immediate daily routine for care and education; they also include addressing the needs of the family. When EHS programs partner with community child care programs in Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships (EHS-CCPs), one aspect of quality the child care programs work to expand is the provision of comprehensive services. In some cases, a child care program will provide these services for the first time when they become part of a partnership; in other cases, programs will extend their existing offerings of comprehensive services to include further services or additional children and families as part of a partnership.

This resource explores the following key questions related to the delivery of comprehensive services in EHS–CCPs, based on findings from six partnerships:

• What are the new or extended services that child care partners in EHS-CCPs provide to children and families as they undertake the provision of comprehensive services?
• How does the partnership support child care partners as they initiate new services or extend the comprehensive services they are providing
• How do child care partners in EHS-CCPs feel about this extension of their services?
• What are parents’ reactions? Approaches to Providing Comprehensive Services in Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships
• What challenges do partnerships face in supporting the provision of comprehensive services and how are they addressing these challenges?