By: Isabelle Hoagland
Peer-reviewed by REAL members
Introduction
Early Childhood Education (ECE) is an essential component of a child’s development during critical years of its life, yet it is often inaccessible for refugee families in the United States Despite ample evidence in favor of creating widespread access to high-quality ECE, the U.S. does not have universal childcare or ECE programs. The federal Head Start program does help provide access to ECE for underserved populations, yet many barriers often prevent refugee families from accessing the Head Start program. In this blog post, I will 1) establish the importance of ECE, 2) reflect on my interview with the executive director of the Community Action Agency of Somerville, MA, David Gibbs, who oversees the city’s Head Start program; and 3) provide recommendations to help ensure access to ECE for refugees in the U.S.
Early Childhood Development
Early Childhood Development (ECD) encompasses a child’s physical, cognitive, linguistic, and social emotional development from a prenatal stage through primary school (UNICEF, 2017). Ninety percent of brain development occurs before the age of five, according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (2010), providing a small window of opportunity in a child’s early years of life to maximize the scope of the brain’s cognitive and language abilities, social skills, and socioemotional development (UNICEF, 2017). Early education is an essential component of healthy child development (Nurturing Care, 2020).
Research on high-quality ECE establishes both short- and long-term advantages (Morland et al., 2016; Karoly et al., 2005). Children who have participated in ECE are less likely to be unemployed or incarcerated later in life, are more likely to graduate from high school, and on average earn higher salaries than those who do not (Meloy et al., 2019). Longitudinal research of preschool programs has found up to $17 returned in social benefits for every dollar invested (Meloy et al., 2019). Furthermore, according to Meloy et al. (2019), high-quality ECE helps close gaps in educational and life outcomes between lower- and upper-income families. ECE has been shown to increase children’s socioemotional skills and school readiness (Arapa et al., 2021; Barnett, 1992), and provide a healing environment for those who have been exposed to trauma (The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child 2005/2014). For children who have experienced trauma or adverse childhood experiences, ECE programs have the potential to offer a nurturing and healing environment.
Head Start Programs
The U.S. does not have universal childcare or ECE programs. Instead, it is the responsibility of individual states and localities to decide what kind of programs to provide, if any (Park, 2018). Some states offer free preschool and ECE for low-income families, but these provisions are ad hoc. However, in 1964, President Johnson created the federally-funded Head Start program with the goal of providing a comprehensive ECD program that would serve low-income and underprivileged communities (Department of Health and Human Services, 2021). Refugees in the U.S. are eligible to enroll in these programs; however, many barriers exist to accessing them. A lack of qualified, bilingual, and culturally competent preschool teachers, ECE staff, and providers make the programs largely inaccessible to refugee families (Park, 2018). Research shows that families with limited proficiency in English or formal education are less likely to enroll their children in ECEC programs due to enrollment barriers (Morland et al., 2016). Beyond Head Start programs, little to no infrastructure exists in the U.S. for refugee children ECE (Park, 2018). This speaks to the broader issue of the lack of universal ECE programs in the country.
I had the chance to speak with David Gibbs, who oversees the Head Start program in Sommerville, MA. In our conversation, Gibbs explained to me that Head Start is a center-based preschool program that also provides holistic wraparound services for the children and their families. Enrollment in Head Start is typically competitive due to high demand and few slots available. To be eligible for Head Start, a family’s income must not exceed 125 percent of the federal poverty line. However, a child may be otherwise qualified by virtue of 1) having a learning disability, 2) being involved with local child abuse or neglect agency, 3) if they are currently homeless, or 4) if they are a refugee. All children enrolled in a Head Start program receive health supervision, vaccinations, regular checkups, access to mental health and disability specialists, and nutrition specialists. Additionally, any family member may receive referrals to mental and primary health services.
An opportunity exists for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to establish a collaboration with the Office of Head Start (OHS). This collaboration could work to ensure that refugee families are aware of local ECE programs available to them and could aid in navigating the enrollment process, addressing one of the key barriers to access that refugee families face. There is currently very little communication between refugee services, which are led by the government, and ECE services, which are run by individual states and localities (Park, 2018). According to Morland et al. (2016), “Head Start is well positioned to work with resettlement programs to help ease the transition of refugee families to their new communities, provide centralized access to key comprehensive services, and improve overall school readiness for children of refugee families” (p. 2). However, such collaboration does not exist in most places in the country, likely due to a silo effect within organizations.
Recommendations
Research has demonstrated that collaboration between federal, state, and local agencies is beneficial in creating access to ECE for refugee children (Morland et al., 2016). As such, I recommend the following to help ensure access to Head Start programs for refugee children:
- ORR should establish a firm collaboration with OHS. Partnerships between ORR and OHS, whose services typically do not interact (Morland et al., 2016), would help ensure that all refugee families with young children are aware of Head Start programs available to them and ensure equitable access, while also signaling the importance of ECE.
- Refugee resettlement agencies should prioritize connecting families with young children to local Head Start programs. A collaboration between resettlement agencies and local Head Start programs would create an avenue to support refugee access to and enrollment in ECE. Refugee families with young children would greatly benefit from Head Start’s wraparound services after they stop receiving support from the resettlement office.
References
Bouchane, Kollen, Molly Curtiss, and Bethany Ellis. 2016. Safe Spaces: The Urgent Need for Early Childhood Development in Emergencies and Disasters. London: Theirworld. https://theirworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Safespaces_report.pdf
Statman-Weil, K. (2015). Creating Trauma- Sensitive Classrooms. 8.
UNICEF-Programme- Guidance-for-Early-Childhood-Development-2017.pdf. (2017). UNICEF.
What is Nurturing Care? (2020, November 19). https://nurturing-care.org/what-is-nurturing-care/