Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Thanks to a sizable federal grant, the Aroostook County Action Program (ACAP) will not only be able to expand its existing offerings, but also establish Early Head Start and prenatal programs, as well.
According to Sue Powers, senior manager of ACAP Child & Family Services, ACAP received $875,000 in Department of Health and Human Services funds.
“[This is] a significant grant, and one of the most exciting aspects of the grant is that it’s all federal dollars,” she said. “Whenever we can bring federal dollars into the state economy, that’s always a good thing.”
Recognizing a need for Early Head Start in Aroostook County about seven years ago, Powers had been unsuccessful in acquiring federal funds … until now.
“We requested from the state to convert our state Head Start dollars into Early Head Start dollars,” she said, “so we’ve been providing a very small Early Head Start program for 15 children for the last seven years.
“When this American Recovery and Reinvestment funding was released in the spring,” said Powers, “we were really excited to apply for it, and very hopeful that we would receive some of it because we were one of only three counties in the state that did not have Early Head Start funding before this.”
ACAP currently serves 271 children. With the $875,000 grant, an additional 40 children and families in home-based Head Start programming, in partnership with Healthy Families Aroostook, will be served.
“There will also be 16 center-based Head Start slots available in Presque Isle and Houlton,” said Powers, “eight in Presque Isle and eight in Houlton.
“One of the other exciting things about Early Head Start is that ACAP – for a number of years – has served infants through school-aged children, and now we’ll be in the prenatal group, as well. We’ll be able to enroll pregnant moms and work with them with early childhood education and health services getting them ready to have their child, and then when their child is born, the enrollment will transition to the child.”
Early Head Start (EHS) is a federally funded community-based program for low-income families with infants and toddlers (ages birth to 3) and pregnant women. Its mission is to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, enhance the development of very young children, and promote healthy functioning families.
EHS evolved out of Head Start’s long history of providing services to infants and toddlers through Parent Child Centers, Comprehensive Child Development Centers (CCDPs) and Migrant Head Start programs. Recent advances in the field of infant development make this an especially exciting time to have Head Start formally expand its reach to include the provision of Early Head Start services.
“Early Head Start offers a full array of Head Start services which includes physical, dental, and mental health, social services, parent education, nutrition, early childhood education and more,” said Powers. “We’re very excited. This will create 13 additional jobs in Aroostook County … five positions in Houlton and eight in Presque Isle, and three of those will be administrative positions. ”
Powers said in addition to the $875,000, ACAP will receive a start-up grant that will “allow us to develop facilities and set up classrooms.”
“That funding is supposed to be available sometime in December,” she said, “and we’ll start serving children in April or May.”
Families with pregnant mothers or children birth to 3 are encouraged to contact ACAP at 764-3721.
