Hope Headstart offers a mixture of Headstart and Day Care. Current operations include two full day collaboration classrooms.
Motto: Touching Children and Reaching Families
OUR MISSION
Our mission is to promote the development of Christian values and support the mental, educational, and spiritual well-being of children and families in order to enhance their lives.
Hope for Youth Headstart provides quality programs and services through effective leadership, through its staff, board and parent volunteers. Collaborative partnerships with other churches and community agencies is an integral component of programming and development.
Parent Involvement
We believe that parents are the prime educators of their children. Our child development program actively promotes the daily involvement of parents both in the classroom and as paid staff.
Parents participate in program planning and decision making opportunities with staff through attendance at monthly Center Committee and Policy Committee meetings. Parents elect their own committee officers and other representatives who attend meetings and workshops throughout the city and bring back to the center and community. Parents also participate in educational, health, and social service workshops and other programs they have identified as being of special interest to them.
Nutrition
Providing nourishing food is an important part of the Headstart day; each student receives a breakfast and lunch or a lunch and snack daily. Information about menus, health lifestyles and food buying activities is shared regularly with parents through meetings, newsletters, workshops and parent bulletin boards to increase their knowledge and understanding of the nutritional needs of children and adults.
Social Services
Social Services is the link to the total Headstart program and represents an organized method of assisting families to meet their own needs. A Social Worker is housed at the Hope for Youth Headstart and acts as a liaison between programs at the center, the home and community sgencies.
Health/Mental Health
One of our goals is to improve the social, emotional and physical status of the children so that learning will be challenging and fun. Physicals include ironclad tests, immunizations, dental care and followup of any identified problems.
The center offers mental health professional talks with parents on how they can foster good mental health at home. We also involve them in any treatment that is provided to their children.
Education
We believe that all children learn by being actively involved in their environment. Our methods are directed toward the development of the whole child by promoting his/her development of social/emotional competencies, physical, cognitive and language skills. We provide them with materials and other people in a manner appropriate to their ages and stages of development. The educational aspects of the various Headstart components are integrated into the daily program activities.
Austin Youth Initiative
This program provides services to youth who experience minor police offensives or school adjustment problems.
