What is Comprehensive Services?
Comprehensive Services is a team approach to serving families that are enrolled with the Head Start program. This approach advocated for families and children to have resources and services available so they can improve their lives. It also included empowering parents to be their own advocate and to advocate for their children. The services include: health, nutrition, mental health, social skills, disabilities, and early childhood education services.
Everyone has heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” That saying sums up the basis of the Comprehensive Services that CSB provided for all enrolled children. It takes a whole community to be responsive to the children and families within it so that the children and families can prosper and grow into responsible citizens and someday give back to the community that raised them.
What is the role of Comprehensive Services?
Community Services realizes that children cannot learn if they are in poor health, do not have enough to eat, or if they do not have a stable home. Parents cannot support their children’s learning if they are worried about where they will sleep, how they will pay the utilities, or where they will get food for breakfast. When families enter our program, the Comprehensive Services staff assess where the family is, where they are coming from, and where they would like to go. A Comprehensive Services staff member is there to help families identify their strengths and interests and build on them so that each family can achieve its goals.